C'mon ryanca. You can be passively appearing to be at the "negotiation table" but not really care about making a deal or not. You can even make a calculated business decision to not reveal or delay the inevitable in order to keep customers in limbo and take in an extra months payment. So simply saying they are "negotiating" at this point in time doesn't mean much.
This is why there were no announcements made way before you posted. Things like, " verizon will do everything in it's power to provide this channel to our valued customers" That would show me they care and are serious about getting the channel.
Not making it known to customers that they are even negotiating is a pretty big hint that they really don't care much. Looking at things now, i know verizon is low man on the totem pole here. What like 4 millions subscribers nationwide?
So in the end it is probably a calculated risk they are taking because they simply don't have many people that actually have fios and are laker fans.
Problem is this isn't like the pac-12 network where fans of those teams still see 90% of their teams games and can find other similiar sports programming that will satisfy them.
Laker fans will not stay once the regular season rolls around .they just wont. Not seeing the lakers isn't a real option. TWC knows that laker fans will leave but they aren't even concerned much with measley fios. They 'd rather stick it to Dish, Comcast and DirectTv.
This verizon negotiation is about penny pinching, plain and simple in combination with trying to estimate how many customers will leave if said deal doesn't get through.
I understand it is complicated ,but verizon is doing very little to indicate they actually care about the customers that want this channel. (which is of course why you were directed to write a pre-written statement from up top and pass it down to us 
)
