As Angry Nats Fans Organize, Anti-Cable Agenda Suspected

Cable industry sources flagged the involvement of Mazzella, who is executive director of the Alexandria-based Center for Individual Freedom, a nonprofit group that emphasizes individual rights.

In his professional life, Mazzella has worked with Washington-based DCI Group on developing corporate and public-interest grass-roots campaigns involving the food and pharmaceutical industries. DCI does public relations, grass-roots organizing, consulting and direct lobbying. One of its major clients is AT&T, according to its Web site.

And the Center for Individual Freedom's Web site shows support for major telecommunications firms such as SBC Communications and AT&T, both of which are rivals of Comcast and the rest of the cable industry.

Mazzella's ties to the campaign were first reported by Satellite Business News, an industry newsletter.

AT&T spokeswoman Claudia Jones said yesterday that her company had no connection to the grass-roots campaign.

Farmer defended the campaign, saying that supporters spread word of the effort last month by starting the Web site and enlisting other bars and restaurants across the region.

Although most of the bar owners already paid $30 to $50 a month to get Nationals games on DirecTV, Farmer made an attractive offer. She told bar owners she would arrange for them to receive posters, banners, table displays, T-shirts -- and even free tickets.

Stratton Liapis, owner of Bullfeathers of Capitol Hill, signed up.

"She said, 'Let's get on the bandwagon about this Comcast thing,' " Liapis said, referring to Farmer. "I said, 'Absolutely,' because I'm a Comcast customer and they won't show the games."

Art Dougherty, co-owner of Crystal City Sports Pub in Arlington, said he had never seen another such organized effort by bars in his 11 years in the business.

"I agreed with what they were saying," Dougherty said. "This is our team, D.C.'s team. Everyone should be able to see it."

At his bar, which gets Nationals games on DirecTV, a large banner featuring the anti-Comcast and anti-Angelos message hangs on the facade and two smaller posters are on the mirror behind the bar. Farmer said she got a friend to print T-shirts and ordered hundreds of glossy pub table displays and posters from a printing company.

With the help of Ramparts owner Mike Anderson and Mazzella, a patron, Farmer said she placed advertisements for the campaign in the Washington City Paper and Roll Call, a Capitol Hill publication.

She said she bought nearly 500 tickets to today's game and distributed them to seven bars that promised to bring fans to the game. Farmer said Mazzella helped with setting up the Web site, recruiting supporting bars, and producing and distributing materials.

"My organization is a constitutional advocacy organization," Mazzella said. "Yeah, we do public affairs campaigns, but it has no affiliation with this campaign at all."

Since starting the effort, Ramparts has become a DirecTV subscriber, paying a monthly fee of $35. On a recent Thursday afternoon, the Nationals game against Cincinnati was being shown on just one of the bar's 17 televisions. Alan Emery, who owns Uncle Jed's Roadhouse in Bethesda, said he joined the campaign because he is a baseball fan who believes that the games should be available on cable, even though his bar has DirecTV.

After learning of Mazzella's history, Emery looked at one of the glossy table displays that Mazzella had given him.

"Man," Emery said, shaking his head, a Nationals game on the flat-screen TV behind him, "I hope I'm not being used."