Let's be honest, Time Warner Cable won't carry the Padres. I mean, if they aren't carrying the NFL Network, then they're not carrying the Padres. And also FSSD is saying that TW just doesn't even really want to negotiate and I haven't seen TW offer up any rebuttal that makes sense, so let's call the deal dead for now and possibly for the next 2 to 3 years until demand for the Padres goes up.
But you're a die hard. You love sports. You love Padres baseball enough to have discovered this blog.
If you're a San Diego sports fan and you have Time Warner Cable, what exactly do you do?
I'm on Cox myself. So I get FSSD and I'm really liking it so far. I've actually watched a few Clippers games and a bit of MMA, and of course all the Padres broadcasts. I suppose if I were on Time Warner, I'd listen to the games on the radio, but honestly? I'd probably switch to Direct TV.
I mean, what do I really need cable for? I'm pretty much at the point where I get all my news on the internet. For the kids, I have Netflix and Amazon Prime.
Pretty much, if I could, I'd get sports and HBO (a Time-Warner company incidentally, though no longer under Time-Warner control as matthewverygood points out) and the local programming just in case. Maybe PBS.
So granted, I may be in the minority, but if I were on Time Warner Cable and I couldn't get Padres, I'd just leave. I mean, we're almost at the point where Netflix streaming could get even more content and HBO could be standalone. At that point, I'd only have cable for the sports. And if the MLB could get over its blackout restrictions, I could easily see a day in the future where I just pick and choose subscriptions. MLB.tv, Netflix, HBO-Go, Amazon Prime. Tons of local news content gets sent up to YouTube channels, which is a more convenient way for me to get that information.
But for now, sports (MLB and NFL specifically) is pretty well locked down so if I want to watch Padres baseball (and football on NFL Network), then I'm sticking with cable.
So, it may be a ramble, but I guess the point is...
If you're a San Diego sports fan on Time Warner Cable, why are you still there? What exactly are you watching?
Maybe you ought to save that money and take the family out to a couple games this year instead. Help a friend with Cox or Direct TV host a viewing party.
Because I think it's pretty plain to see that Time Warner is not really interested in what you want to see.
[UPDATE]
I realize from the comments that this post doesn't quite make sense. Just to be clear, if you're on Time Warner Cable and you're a Padres fan, I'm not saying you should switch to DirectTV or move or anything. I know a lot of people don't have those options.
I'm saying you should just drop Time Warner Cable completely. You can still get network TV through an antennae and I would bet that between antennae, Netflix, Hulu, etc... You'll find you don't really need Time Warner Cable at all.
Plus, they obviously don't really care about you.
[UPDATE - CORRECTION]
I previously implied that Time Warner Cable and HBO were both controlled by Time Warner, though matthewverygood points out that Time Warner Cable spun off and is independent, only sharing the name.