As has been reported on in many places this morning, DirecTV subscribers waking up early to watch Opening Day were met with no TV signal on channels carrying the game. From homes to bars serving kegs and eggs, fans were left out in the cold with their team half a world a way opening the season in dramatic fashion.
Here is DirecTV’s official response to the situation as quoted from Boston.com’s Extra Bases;
“We experienced some temporary technical difficulties early this morning that resulted in some channels not being available to customers. The majority of our channels were not affected and we have since corrected the problem. In the case of the Red Sox season opener, we were able to bring the NESN channel back up at the top of the seventh inning. ESPN2 came back on later, after the game was over. (Customers who have NESN or ESPN2 in
HD were able to see the entire game.) We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused our customers – and particularly Red Sox Fans. ESPN2 is planning to carry a repeat of the game at 2 p.m.”
For some fans, this isn’t enough. Missing Opening Day is priceless no matter what time zone it occurs in.
I just got a call from DirecTV saying basically, “sorry we don’t care it was a ‘technical issue’.” After explaining how irate I was, they offered me a 70 cent credit for lost time due to the outage. Sure I wanted more, but you know what if everyone of the 15 million subscribers insist on this credit it will cost them $10.5 million dollars in lost revenue. I urge everyone to insist on this credit. – Fire Brand reader, Paul from Orlando
For those of you who missed the game, check Shawn’s recap for the highlights.
Between now and the Red Sox home opener Fire Brand of the American League will be collecting predictions for Red Sox players performance this season. Please take part in our player surveys to make this as large a sample size as possible.