THE FRONT ROW WITH MARK NELKE: Jan. 12, 2014

Washington State wasn't supposed to put up much of a fight against No. 15 Colorado in Pac-12 men's basketball the other night.

But, as it turned out, the Cougars pushed the visiting Buffaloes into overtime before falling by one point at the Spokane Arena.

However, if you were trying to catch the game on DirecTV, you didn't get to see it anyway.

It's been that way for a year and a half, with no signs of it ending.

DirecTV and the Pac-12 Networks have been unable to come to an agreement since the conference's networks went on the air in fall 2012.

The problem in a nutshell - the Pac-12 wants its channel(s) to be part of a tier with other like channels, but DirecTV wants to make it a pay-per-view or al a carte channel.

"We basically have a proposal on the table that is essentially the same one that we've reached with 60-plus other providers, and DirecTV wants something different," said Kirk Reynolds, vice-president of communications for the Pac-12 Networks. "They feel like they should have a different deal, and it's just not how it works. It's unfortunate, obviously the content we have is great, the fans want it, their customers want it, and they're not listening to their customer base."

Here is DirecTV's stance on the issue, as explained by spokesperson Robert Mercer:

"We've always been willing to offer Pac-12 for the fans who want it, as long as we're not forcing everyone else to pay a premium for the network," He said. "Our point is that customers should have a choice - if they want it, allow them to make a decision to pay extra for it. But the conference apparently doesn't have the confidence that enough fans will pay for the channel on an a la carte or even pay-per-view basis. So they insist on having all of our customers subsidize it, but the problem is, the majority of our customers aren't sports fans, much less fans of the Pac-12, so this is a tax for which they receive zero benefit."

FOR THOSE who don't know, here's basically how the Pac-12 Networks work:

There are seven networks, one national network and six regional networks - one each for the Washington State and Washington viewing areas, one for Oregon State/Oregon, one for Stanford/Cal, one for Utah/Colorado, one for USC/UCLA, and one for Arizona/Arizona State.

In our region, if you get Time Warner Cable, you can get Pac-12 Washington, which means you get most, if not all, of the football and men's basketball games played on the Pac-12 Networks, as well as "minor" sports for the Cougars and the Huskies - women's basketball, volleyball, soccer, baseball, softball, etc.

"Basically, this year we have 750 live events," Reynolds said. "350 of those are on the national feed (they go across all 7 networks), and 400 are on regional networks."

If you have DISH Network, you can get the national Pac-12 Network, which gives you all the football and men's basketball games the network carries, and fills in the rest of the airtime with other sports and other programming.

Reynolds said DirecTV has similar agreements with each of its carriers - you either get the national network or your regional network, depending on where you live. Either way, you get a lot of Pac-12 games.

Unless you have DirecTV. Then the only Pac-12 games you get are the few ones shown on ESPN or CBS.

"But this isn't just about the Pac-12," Mercer said. "Sports networks in general are costly to carry and they continue to be one of the single biggest drivers of our overall programming cost increases over the past few years. If sports costs continue to spiral, we may see the average customer priced right out of the market. That's why we have to draw a line in sand, or turf as the case may be. It appears teams and conferences like Pac-12 are expecting everyone, including non-sports fans, to subsidize the high cost of their programming and apparently think nothing of depriving their most loyal fans of their games to achieve that."

WHAT HAS Reynolds scratching his head is why DirecTV will carry other sports networks, like regional sports networks or even national ones like Big Ten Network, CBS Sports Network and NBC Sports Network, as part of tiers, but not the Pac-12 Networks.

"They've thrown out a pay-per-view or an on-demand thing, and we're certainly not going to agree to something like that," he said. "They don't offer any other full-time sports network that way. We're not going to go that route."

Reynolds said the two sides are in constant communication, and said the conference wants to be on DirecTV. But as far as ever reaching an agreement, if neither side will budge, Reynolds doesn't sound optimistic a deal will ever be reached.

"Not at this point," he said. "We're not going to quit, but they have not indicated that they are interested in reaching an agreement this school year.

"What we've proposed to DirecTV is really no different than how the Big 10 Network is handled; we just want to be treated the same.

"Getting on DirecTV is a priority," Reynolds added. "Our fans want it, we want it. But DirecTV hasn't shown a sense of urgency to go it, and that's what's been frustrating. Even though the market has been set, with more than 60 other carriers. To date, they haven't been interested, without imposing different rules on the Pac-12 than they do on any other sports network."

Not exactly the encouraging words DirecTV viewers were hoping to hear.

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at CdAPressSports.