NHL or MMA: What got Vs. back on DirectTV?

Hockey Betting Lines

03/16/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - After months of haggling over carriage fees and other points of contention too boring to rehash, Versus is finally back on DirecTV.

DirecTV dropped Versus a month before the NHL season began due to an argument over how much Comcast -- the telecommunications behemoth that owns the sports channel -- was charging the satellite giant to carry Vs.

That meant for the first five months of the season, nationally televised hockey games on Vs. were nowhere to be found in the homes of an estimated 18 million DirecTV subscribers.

The important thing for Versus is that the channel is back as an option in millions of American homes and it's on the same DirecTV sports programming package as it was when the satellite giant dropped the station back in August.

Still, it's hard to say who won the battle since financial terms of the new deal were not revealed.

DirecTV seemed to have caved under the pressure, but the issue for them was always the fees Comcast was charging. Since we don't know what the carriage fees on the new deal are, or even how long the new agreement will last, it's difficult to guess if Comcast or DirecTV benefited more from the standstill.

If Comcast gets less than it was receiving from DirecTV before the previous carriage deal ended on Aug. 31, it probably won't be fatal. The Philadelphia- based company doesn't exactly have to pinch pennies, judging from Comcast's impending purchase of NBC Universal. The three digits on my last cable bill also convince me that Comcast won't need a government bailout any time soon.

Hockey fans will boast that DirecTV was forced to cave now that the Stanley Cup playoffs are less than a month away, but that certainly wasn't the only factor in getting Vs. back on the air.

The NHL is one of the four major sports, so it's largely assumed that the biggest draw on Vs. is professional hockey. That's because the mainstream sports media largely ignores mixed martial arts, which continues to increase in popularity.

The numbers also suggest that the DirecTV spat hurt Versus more in the realm of MMA than it did in terms of NHL viewership, possibly because MMA is bigger than hockey in rural areas of the country where Comcast is not as prevalent.

The first WEC (World Extreme Cagefighting) event after DirecTV drew 419,000 viewers -- over 250,000 less than had watched the previous WEC card on August 9. WEC is also staging its first pay-per view on April 24 and DirecTV will now be allowed to carry that event, which will feature Urijah Faber in the main card. Faber's previous three appearances averaged 1,112,000 viewers for Versus, making him the Alex Ovechkin of WEC.

Comcast may have even felt more pressure to get Vs. back on DirecTV in light of the cable station's first UFC event, which is scheduled for Sunday night.

Whether it was DirecTV's fear of missing out on the NHL playoffs or Comcast's desire to get its MMA programming back on the right track ratings-wise, the clear winners are satellite subscribers.

Versus may never step into the same league as ESPN in terms of viewership and power, but the station has acquired enough niche sports to make its presence essential to many Americans.

The NHL gives Vs. consistency and the respect that the sports channel desires, while MMA has been able to deliver the occasional huge ratings night if the right guy is fighting.

Together, the NHL and MMA have made Vs. a bit player in the world of televised sports something that seemed impossible just a few years back,

OVECHKIN SUSPENSION

Speaking of the Urijah Faber of the NHL, Washington Capitals superstar Alex Ovechkin's two-game suspension by the league was a no-brainer.

The Russian sniper drilled Chicago defenseman Brian Campbell near the end boards on Sunday, sending Campbell headfirst into the dasher.

The hit itself was not exactly dirty but reckless, the exact word that the NHL used to describe the play in its press release announcing the suspension.

Yet, the fact that Ovechkin was given a major penalty and a game misconduct by officials made it easy to hand out the two-game sanction. Campbell also broke his clavicle on the play and will reportedly miss the rest of the regular season.

Not to mention, Washington has already clinched the Southeast Division and with a huge lead atop the Eastern Conference standings, missing their best player for two games will not likely stop the Caps from taking the East's top playoff seed.

As for the impact this will have on Ovechkin, it's safe to say that this suspension won't change his style of play one bit. Ovie has been the same player since he entered the league in 2005-06, one who skates the thin line between aggressive and dirty. That's part of what makes him a great player, and certainly the reason he is the NHL's biggest draw.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.