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Sinclair/Ballys/ESPN/TNT ... broadcasting access, tips and notes

jeffbear said:
but let's be real here. Pretty close to the same amount of money was being spent on gambling before there were legal outlets. The cash flow just shifted from off shore sites and bookies to FanDuel and ESPNBet and whatever else.
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Strongly disagree. Make it legal and the “taboo” is gone so more people participate that wouldn’t. Just like weed.

It’s in your face everywhere. On every game, every sports show, every pregame, every sports webpage. Not only does that attract new gamblers, I’d imagine it makes it very hard for gambling edicts to resist the temptation. But who cares about them, the state gets another source of revenue.

They wouldn’t be spending the advertising dollars if it didn’t work.
 
polarbare said:
Millennials can't afford housing because businesses are buying housing to sit on them and rent them out for max profits.

Gambling is becoming juggernaut issue, but that's not why most people can't afford large purchases.
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Businesses buying them is part of the reason.

Another part is that instead of getting on with “real life” at 21 or 22 and scrimping and saving for a house like previous generations did they played around for 10 or 12 years living in expensive locations in expensive apartments, driving expensive and often new cars, going out to eat at expensive restaurants and sustaining a daily coffee shop habit, and going on numerous expensive vacations … they want the lifestyle and the house.

There are lots of reasons. Which is why it’s not easy to fix. But legalized gambling is making it harder for more people than it’s making it easier for.

I will say that buying a first house in the mid 90s cost about the same percentage of income for most people I know that it does now. And the rates sucked then too. And that saving for it and paying that mortgage payment meant that we weren’t going on vacations that cost much and we weren’t eating out and we were not buying expensive groceries etc because we couldn’t do both. It’s hard for them now. It was hard for us then.
 
As a young Gen Xer I disagree; good luck buying any home as a 22 year old in MA where the AVERAGE home price in Boston has hit $900,00. My town 20 miles away? Average home is over $700,000. If you can even find a $300,000 home it'll need $200,000 of repairs, and if you can find one under $300,000 don't buy it because it's a death trap; but don't worry, a builder already bought it and is turning it into another $1M McMansion.

Maybe NC is different outside of Raleigh, but the idea of a "starter home" simple does not exist here. There are exactly 2 listings under $500,00 in my town as of 2 minutes ago; both condos for over $300,000 in a development I wouldn't prefer to live in. The average salary in MA today is $65K.

Housing costs have outpaced salaries by a wide margin. Young people aren't being shut out because of the avocado toast arguments.
 
Not buying it. Average salary in 1988 was 20k. In 2020 it was $50k. That’s never bought a starter house in MA or NY or CA. Those markets have always been overpriced but incomes are higher there too, or they have been.

average house in 1990 was 80k
Average house in 2024 is 163k.

Like I said. Lots of reasons. I didn’t say avocado toast but buying coffee and avo toast every workday morning… avo toast is over $7. Coffee -just plain coffee is $2 and few people seem to go for just plain. So that’s $9 per day or $2250 per year if they skip non work days.
 
Average house where is $163K?

The home I bought for $104K and sold for somewhat more than that in 2008 is now $349K. 1500 sq/ft outside of Clayton.
 
polarbare said:
Average house where is $163K?

The home I bought for $104K and sold for somewhat more than that in 2008 is now $349K. 1500 sq/ft outside of Clayton.
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In the US. What’s your point. Average salary in the triangle is more than the average I listed too.
 
Right now, the median income in Wake County is about $47k and the median home price is about $500k.
 
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cmon3 said:
In the US. What’s your point. Average salary in the triangle is more than the average I listed too.
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I'm not being a jerk. I looked at moving back to NC and it's not the old days of selling at a Boston price and buying a mansion for NC prices, or buying reasonable and pocketing the cash.
Houses in the sub $200K class in and around Raleigh just aren't available if I don't want a money pit or gunshots outside my door. If you know something I don't, I'm all ears! :)
 
Back to the whole cable/internet/streaming discussions earlier in this thread...

I wrote here earlier about how happy I was since dropping Spectrum in favor of YouTube TV and a handful of other streaming options. Despite cutting the cord for TV, I was still using Spectrum as my ISP...until today.

AT&T Fiber finally became available in my neighborhood and it was installed in my home today. I can't write positively enough about the experience...I've gone from 300 Mbps to 1-gig and the cost is about $20 less per month. Plus, the installer arrived on time, was super-friendly and competent, and he finished the job in about two hours. An AT&T account manager even dropped by during the installation to make sure everything was progressing smoothly.
 
HeyKurtz said:
Back to the whole cable/internet/streaming discussions earlier in this thread...

I wrote here earlier about how happy I was since dropping Spectrum in favor of YouTube TV and a handful of other streaming options. Despite cutting the cord for TV, I was still using Spectrum as my ISP...until today.

AT&T Fiber finally became available in my neighborhood and it was installed in my home today. I can't write positively enough about the experience...I've gone from 300 Mbps to 1-gig and the cost is about $20 less per month. Plus, the installer arrived on time, was super-friendly and competent, and he finished the job in about two hours. An AT&T account manager even dropped by during the installation to make sure everything was progressing smoothly.
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Oh, and don't get me started on the 12+ minute conversation I had to have with a Spectrum rep to cancel my service. After 29 years as a customer, it felt like a divorce.
 
HeyKurtz said:
Oh, and don't get me started on the 12+ minute conversation I had to have with a Spectrum rep to cancel my service. After 29 years as a customer, it felt like a divorce.
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I had a similar experience with spectrum when I dumped them for Google Fiber. They somehow argued to me that it was my fault that they hadn’t offered me a better deal even though I had explicitly asked them in a previous call if they could do exactly that and they said no. The guy was laughably pretentious. It made dumping them that much more satisfying.
 
HeyKurtz said:
Oh, and don't get me started on the 12+ minute conversation I had to have with a Spectrum rep to cancel my service. After 29 years as a customer, it felt like a divorce.
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I used to have that problem. But now when I want to cancel something I create a lie they can’t question. Spectrum currently thinks I live in Garmisch Germany working for the us army. 2 minute call. My exterminator thinks I sold my house to some young couple moving here from Utah.
 
Fayettenamcanesfan said:
I used to have that problem. But now when I want to cancel something I create a lie they can’t question. Spectrum currently thinks I live in Garmisch Germany working for the us army. 2 minute call. My exterminator thinks I sold my house to some young couple moving here from Utah.
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Imagine saying ”Garmisch” with a Boston accent. One of the more amusing conversations I ever had with my mother-in-law, who was born, raised and has lived her whole life in the Boston area, was her trying to pronounce that town after they returned from a vacation there. We didn’t even bother with the “Partenkirchen” part of the hyphenated name.
 
andyt said:
Imagine saying ”Garmisch” with a Boston accent. One of the more amusing conversations I ever had with my mother-in-law, who was born, raised and has lived her whole life in the Boston area, was her trying to pronounce that town after they returned from a vacation there. We didn’t even bother with the “Partenkirchen” part of the hyphenated name.
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I know what you mean. My family is from the Boston/Salem Mass area. I grew up in NC as a military brat but my extended family, and my wife’s, are all in New England.

I loved my visit to Garmisch so it’s my go to ‘I’m moving here’ lie when I want to cancel something without having to deal with them trying to sell me on staying with their services. lol
 
HeyKurtz said:
Oh, and don't get me started on the 12+ minute conversation I had to have with a Spectrum rep to cancel my service. After 29 years as a customer, it felt like a divorce.
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Had the same conversation with AT&T when we cancelled U-verse. The day before there were no special offers, but on the day we cancelled they found a way to reduce our bill by $25/month - but it was too little, too late. Now we're getting ready to cancel AT&T internet service. It's worked fine (when combined with a network extender), but we've been testing T-Mobile and it has worked well enough for our home use, at a much lower cost..
 
My wife gleefully told the Spectrum rep that hell would be freezing over before we ever spent a dime with their sorry lot again. The guy had balls enough to offer $1,000 off for the entire TV/Internet/Phone package for the next year. Her response was "Why, so you can charge us $3,000 over that the following year?" My wife is not a violent person, but she hates Spectrum more than I hate Bufflao Sabres, Boston Bruins, and the Rangers combined, which is saying something.

Jim
 
Pucking Lamplighter said:
My wife gleefully told the Spectrum rep that hell would be freezing over before we ever spent a dime with their sorry lot again. The guy had balls enough to offer $1,000 off for the entire TV/Internet/Phone package for the next year. Her response was "Why, so you can charge us $3,000 over that the following year?" My wife is not a violent person, but she hates Spectrum more than I hate Bufflao Sabres, Boston Bruins, and the Rangers combined, which is saying something.

Jim
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Do you sleep with one eye open?
 
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