I was reading through the notes posted on Yahoo about the owners meeting when I came across this little tidbit buried well into the article:

The commissioner and Dallas owner Jerry Jones emphasized they are committed to the NFL Network even though a long-running dispute with three of the nation’s biggest cable companies has limited its reach to 35 million homes instead of the 50 million the league expected at this point.

The dispute has intensified since last season, when the network started showing late-season games. Jones, the chairman of the NFL Network committee, said he had been getting numerous calls from areas which will not be able to see the Cowboys’ Nov. 29 game with Green Bay, a contest between two of the NFC’s top teams, because the cable companies in their areas don’t get the network.

Worried about missing the Dallas game because it is on the NFL channel? The only sympathy you will get from me is if you don’t get DirectTV or some other alternative means of getting it.

Hey, I left DirectTV a few years back because I thought I could get a better deal with a cable company. I was with Comcast for a while, and then they sold out to Time Warner. And Time Warner promptly dumped the NFL channel.

So, now I’m with Verizon FIOS. Why? Because they do have the NFL channel.

I’ve been with DirectTV, Comcast, Time Warner, and FIOS, and the main difference I saw in service was channel lineup. Sure, DirectTV can go down during storms, so that was a bit of a pain, but I’d rather that than no NFL channel. But maybe that’s just me.

What I will say about the whole battle between the NFL network and the cable companies is I don’t have any sympathy for the cable companies. Hey, you don’t like how much money the NFL wants for their network? Hey, if you guys went to ala carte programming, it wouldn’t be a problem would it? You are charging me for a bunch of stations I don’t ever watch, so you might as well pay for one that I do watch.

But, wait, that won’t work because I already left my cable company for not giving me the NFL channel. I suppose we all need our priorities.