Cable flap could leave 400K Hawkeye fans bowl-less

Iowa will take on ACC champ Georgia Tech Jan. 5 in the Orange Bowl.  Needless to say, a lot of Iowans are looking forward to this game because, one, it involves their beloved Hawkeyes and, two, there’s really not a whole helluva lot to do in Iowa in the dead of winter.

[Writer's Note: I was born, raised and still live in the Midwest.  I can joke about such things.]

Unfortunately for some of those Iowans, a dispute between two entities that have a license to print money could prevent hundreds of thousands of them from seeing the game on their television screens.

Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s demand that cable company Mediacom Communications Corp. pay more to carry its stations could leave 700,000 cable subscribers in 11 states without some local channels on Jan. 1. That includes about 400,000 subscribers in Iowa, most of whom will lose the channel televising the Jan. 5 Orange Bowl between Iowa and Georgia Tech.

The cable showdown is part of a long-running national battle over what are known as carriage fees. Cable TV operators claim owners of broadcast stations and cable channels are gouging their customers by demanding ever-rising payments. Content owners respond that cable companies earn outsized profits by simply retransmitting their valuable channels.

Customers in Iowa City, Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, among others, could be affected by this dispute.

Sinclair executive vice president Barry Faber told the Associated Press that he is “very pessimistic” a deal will be done by the time the current contract expires on Dec. 31.