FirstCuts: Sirius-XM Merger Fallout For Sports

Well, it’s official: Sirius and XM will be allowed to merge.↵↵The FCC commissioners voted 3-2 to approve the merger on Friday as the companies agreed to a three-year cap on pricing and promised to set aside eight percent of their channel capacity for minority and noncommercial programming, according to CNET.↵

↵↵This is a sports blog, and not a business blog, so we’re not going to get into the fact that this clearly is a monopoly. But the merger still has ramifications for sports fans. College programs have long been spread across the two providers. While the NFL, NBA and NASCAR have been on Sirius, XM featured MLB and NHL. But what if you could pick and choose?↵

↵↵This could be amazing for sports fans. Then again, it could be like buying cable today. While a la carte pricing has its perks, it always ends up costing a lot when you want to be truly picky. I’d be surprised to hear you can do something like order Pac-10, NBA and NFL.↵

↵↵Neither Sirius nor XM have great details about any future a la carte pricing plans at this point, but with the possibility of being able to get the best of both worlds, it’s something everyone will be watching.↵

↵↵I’ll throw it open to the commenters: In an ideal world, what services would you have on your satellite radio? (This Sirius subscriber would love NBA, NFL and all of the colleges. Having baseball would only ensure I’d drive off the road from snoozing.)↵

↵