What Houston Lost to Finally Get the Rockets and Astros on TV Again

Most of Houston didn't get to see Bill Doleman (left) and Calvin Murphy (right) together on CSN's Rockets studio show, and now they never will.

For two years, Comcast SportsNet viewers had sarcastically needled Bill Doleman, asking him why he didn't dress more like his Houston Rockets studio show co-host, Calvin Murphy, whose flamboyant suits crashed nightly through every barrier of sartorial subtlety at warp speed.

So it was appropriate, Doleman thought, in their final Comcast SportsNet broadcast together on October 22, for him to finally accede to the wishes of the masses, paying homage to his partner, but doing so in the most respectful way possible, donning a replica of Murphy's red number 23 Rockets jersey during a tearful seven-minute farewell.

Two years ago, with the launch of CSN Houston, Doleman and Murphy had been placed together on Rockets studio duty sight unseen. Doleman, like most CSN on-air talent, was brand-new to Houston, and Murphy had been in television exile for a number of years due in part to issues in his personal life.

Two years later, not only had their show been nominated for multiple regional Emmys, but Doleman and Muprhy had become close friends.

"We went from partners to friends to family. I got the opportunity to work with you, to know your girls, to fall in love with your girls," Murphy told Doleman. "As soon as I came back [to television] and saw you were my drum major, I knew the band was going to play."

Doleman called his time with Murphy the "greatest assignment of [his] career," and the two closed their last show together with a heartfelt on-air embrace.

It was a scene that in many ways was a microcosm of CSN Houston as a whole on that somber night of October 22. That's how a number of the shows ended that day, both in front of the camera and behind the scenes.

They ended with hugs, tears and gratitude for friendships developed, for this would be the final day at CSN Houston for dozens of talented hosts, journalists and production people, as the network begins its bankruptcy-fueled transition from joint ownership among CSN, the Rockets and the Astros to the AT&T/DirecTV-owned Root Sports.

If you were looking for the true casualties in the two-year failure of CSN Houston to achieve its distribution goals, here they were, the nearly 100 employees whose professional lives were getting steamrolled under a pile of legal bills and bankruptcy law, all playing out right there on television for 40 percent of Houston to see.

And that's been the problem all along, that number. Forty percent. Eventually, to survive, you need the other 60 percent of the city to be able to see you.

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Since its launch in October 2012, CSN Houston has been unable to secure carriage agreements with most of the major cable and satellite providers outside of Comcast. Providers such as AT&T, DirecTV and Dish Network have refused to cave to what they see as excessive subscriber fee demands, leaving that aforementioned 60 percent of the city unable to watch the Rockets, the Astros, the Dynamo and the rest of CSN Houston's critically acclaimed content.

In most circles, the blame for the network's inflexibility on carriage fees is directed at Astros owner Jim Crane. Crane purchased the Astros and the team's piece of ownership in CSN Houston from Drayton McLane back in 2011 for more than $600 million, a purchase price that was driven by, in retrospect, inaccurate estimates of the demand for and worth of the network. Crane eventually sued McLane and Comcast for fraud in a case that remains open to this day.

Ownership factions operating under different financial needs would seem to be a recipe for failure, and certainly this was a factor in the Astros/Rockets joint ownership of CSN. Crane's Astros compete in a world where local television rights are proportionally far more of a revenue lifeblood than they are in the NBA's world, where teams are buoyed by massive national television agreements with ABC/ESPN and Turner. Consequently, owner Les Alexander and the Rockets were far more willing to agree to lower carriage fees with non-Comcast television service providers just to get Rockets broadcasts into the homes of the "other 60 percent."

Eventually, the labyrinth of stalemates, internal and external, among the network's owners and the cable and satellite providers drove CSN Houston into bankruptcy in September 2013. The Comcast regional sports network model that had proven to be so lucrative in markets like Chicago, D.C., the Bay Area, pretty much everywhere else, was officially a financial train wreck in Houston.

Pending all approvals, the solution will be a court-approved joint sale of the network to AT&T and DirecTV, with Rockets and Astros games to be carried on a channel called Root Sports Houston.

To the teams, this means that they will take a painful short-term hit in forfeiting their stake in the network (which is now worth far less than originally forecast at its inception in 2010) and forfeiting the rights fees still owed to them for the last couple seasons (more than $100 million each for the Astros and the Rockets).

However, the teams are taking the financial hit in order to rebuild the long-term goodwill that comes with getting their games back on the air in more viewers' homes.