One of the great things about modern cable and satellite TV is the explosion of sports programming now available to customers across the country. While 25 years ago you would see a couple of college football games on Saturday and a few on Sunday, today you can literally pick from two dozen or more games every weekend. Even the NCAA tournament has expanded coverage with the Mega March Madness on Direct TV.

The motto today is “Content is King” and as the saying goes the sports networks want to deliver as much content as possible to the sports fan so they can sell more advertising. Quite a few new all-sports networks have sprung up in the last few years. A few of the new networks are Altitude Sports, which carries NBA Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche games, and also the Big 10 network and the Mtn, the network of the Mountain West conference.

Sure these networks are good for folks in certain regions of the country, but disputes between the providers of sports programming and cable networks that deliver the content have resulted in difficulties to the customer. For example, the Big Ten Network started airing in 2007, but they were in a carraige dispute with big cable provider Time Warner. Subscribers of Time Warner in the midwest were unable to watch some of the local teams play due to this dispute. Fortunately, the companies involved came to terms before the fall football season, so subscribers could stay with Time Warner rather than having to switch over to one of the satellite TV companies such as DISH Network or Direct TV. An important thing to do when considering providers is to consider all factors, comparing DIRECTV against Time Warner.

Out of market sports programming are another thing sports fans should consider. The NFL TV Sunday Ticket package is exclusive to satellite TV, so if you want this football fest, you have to switch. This has upset some Comcast and DISH Network customers, who do not understand why a package Sunday Ticket isn’t available to every provider. Other sports bundles though are more fan friendly, such as the National Hockey League Center Ice and the NBA League Pass, which are available on almost every cable TV and satellite company. Direct TV seems to have all of the sports programming like the NFL Sunday Ticket.