Versus will become the exclusive cable television home of the Indy Racing League

My biggest problem with this deal. No matter how popular ICS gets over the next decade at least 13 of 22 (The historic max) races have to be on a rather obscure cable channel. No matter how positive you spin it, its not the greatest deal ever. Maybe the greatest deal available.

The worst case scenario is we get 18 cars driving around empty tracks in front a group of about 300,000 die hards, which is pretty much what the league was until this year

Like Pook or Craig or Gentilozzi or KK or GF?

We really don't know the details of this deal. We know it's a 10-year deal. We don't know "out" or "in" clauses in it that may or may not exist based on ratings or reach. Do I think the deal will be the same "split" in Year #10 as it is in Year #1? We hafta wait 10 years to find out, but NO.

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Originally Posted by DBell

You list some of the pros that satellite offers, but there are cons. The main one that prevents me from going to the dish is that if you live in an area that has a lot of thunder storms, you will have to put up with a lot of service interuptions. Our friends that have dish satellites have told us that when it storms, they lose their signals.

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Good point, but I think the signals/technology/equipment have really come around in the last few years. I live in the middle of nowhere in the California desert - we get sand storms and major winds about half the year. We had one storm that knocked out reception, but it was back on in about 15 minutes. The new HD dish that they have is even better - tons of summer t-storms this year and ZERO signal loss. We had Dish Network a few years back and it was awful - lots of dropped signals - I felt like I was playing telephone with paper cups & string. lol Not sure if DirecTV is just "that much better" or if it's just the evolution of the technology. I would NEVER go back to cable. My mom lives 20 miles away and her cable is out all the time. The worst part? She has cable TV, Internet and VoIP phone, so when it goes - it ALL goes.

I have DirecTV and the only time that it has gone out for me is when I should be in the basement, not watching TV.

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Originally Posted by chuck34

I have DirecTV and the only time that it has gone out for me is when I should be in the basement, not watching TV.

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Agree; I also have DirecTv & if the sat goes out, I need to be listening to the weather radio, not watching a race.

LPGA??? Again???? Maybe there is a silver lining in the Versus TV deal. At least we won't have to watch golf as the race starts.

Gary

THREE-way playoff......sheesh.

agreed gary, i can't fathom how there's viewership over 100,000 for a women's golf event. Do people really watch that? And VS can be channel 200 for all I care, as long as they don't bump the start of the races.

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Originally Posted by inimitablestoo

From a British perspective, I'm wondering how this affects Five's coverage. They tend to get most of their US sports coverage from ESPN. It would be a shame to lose it just as the series starts gathering momentum.

Although, as long as the indycar.com website keeps showing races for free, it might not be too much of an issue...

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Same here - im not sure if we can get Versus in Oz

We might be up s- creek with not much of a paddle If they dont offload it to another station

I read earlier that ESPN would carry the international feeds of the races, but that might only apply to the 5 they have purchased.