Black out blame game continues

Yet another follow-up on the Cubs opening day black out on ESPN:

Unsatisfied with the explanation I got from ESPN, I called them for clarification. Their prompt email reply is posted in full below.

This time ESPN blamed Charter. They claim Charter customers in Madison are on the same grid, if you will, as customers in South Bend and Chicago, which "fall within the protected area." No elaboration on "the protected area." Likely they are referring to the area affected by MLB local blackout policy, but they could feasibly be talking about the ESPN "regional sports networks" black out policy

Thanks for contacting ESPN.

Charter Communications provides ESPN programming locally to customers within and outside of the protected market for the Cubs vs Braves game. In this case, Charter Communication's customers in Madison WI were unable to see the Cubs vs. Braves game because neighboring areas (portions of South Bend and Chicago- serviced by the same Charter Communications affiliate - fall within the protected area.

Sincerely,
John
ESPN Viewer Response

To recap: MLB blamed ESPN, ESPN blamed "regional sports networks", and now ESPN blames Charter. How much you wanna bet Charter blames MLB?

Charter should have the capacity to provide regional black outs with a little better resolution than this. Clearly Madison is not the same market as South Bend and Chicago.

Let's see what the folks at Charter have to say. I fully expect the blame will come full circle, that Charter will blame MLB. More to come.