Comcast Doesn't Carry Most NBA League Pass Games in HD, and That's Egregious

Thems ems the poster-chemld of femrst-world problems. Because the remght sperm found the remght egg, I’m not trapped emn a regemon torn apart by genocemdal war, lackemng water, food, shelter, and medemcemne. Instead of countemng my lucky stars and beemng THRILLED to be a sports fan emn thems specemal day and age, emt bothers the shemt out of me that Comcast’s $200 NBA League Pass package aemrs a vast majoremty of emts games only emn standard defemnemtemon.

Comcast chooses to present its customers with an inferior product here. “We provide all League Pass games in HD,” says NBA rep Michael Wade. “Some of our distributors, however, have bandwidth limitations and are unable to supply all games in HD.” ‘Unable’ seems like a charitable interpretation here — as Comcast has over 20 million subscribers, ‘unwilling’ would be more accurate. DirecTV and AT&T U-Verse both carry League Pass in HD. FiOS has five HD channels, which is a lot better than Comcast, but still not ideal for our site’s Stephen Douglas. He also says that he previously had 10 HD channels with one of cable television’s most notorious monsters, Time Warner Cable.

If the odious TWC can offer 10 HD channels, why can’t everybody else?

“While all games are available in SD, Comcast currently offers up to three NBA League Pass HD channels in the majority of our markets,” says a Comcast spokesperson. “We know our customers value their TV experience and we are working to expand and enhance our NBA League Pass HD offering across our footprint.” Though she said a majority of their customers have three, I only have one in Chicago, which is the nation’s third largest market.

Frankly, this is unsatisfactory, but I’m not sure a more palatable option exists. NBA League Pass Broadband is notoriously shitty. I don’t really want to take a leap of faith on Roku or Chromecast without assurances that they’ll actually work, nor do I want to shell out for a video game console. DirecTV requires a two-year commitment and it would end up being prohibitively more expensive since I’d have to unbundle my TV and Internet.

U-Verse is available in my area, and I actually called them and set up installation, but may already be having buyer’s remorse after reading horror stories about their slow speeds and unresponsive customer service. Though Comcast doesn’t have stellar reviews either, I’ve actually been pretty satisfied with their service aside from this League Pass annoyance. I have a one-week overlap between U-Verse installation and a new Comcast billing cycle, and there’s apparently a 30-day grace period with AT&T where I can decide to cancel my service at no cost. Hopefully any potential issues with my Internet connection manifest themselves during that period and don’t creep up after I’ve canceled Comcast.