RALEIGH -- Two top NFL teams take the field in Dallas on Thursday night, but millions of cable customers, including Time Warner subscribers, are unable to see the game.

It's a battle of behemoths: The country's largest cable companies, including Time Warner Cable and Comcast, pitted against the nation's most profitable and powerful sport league, the NFL.

A disagreement between the two prevents the cable customers from watching the eight games scheduled on the NFL Network this season.

The issues are complex, but for cable customers, here's the bottom line: should all cable customers share the cost of the new, NFL Network placing it alongside such channels as CNN and ESPN on your standard cable lineup? Or should the NFL Network be on a special digital sports tier, available only to customers who want to pay extra each month to watch it?

“We think the programming belongs on a digital sports tier where other sports programming like NFL is already located,” explained Time Warner Cable Spokesman Brad Phillips. “Those customers who want it can then buy it but those customers who don't shouldn't be forced to buy it on a lower tier.”

News 14 Carolina contacted NFL Network Spokesperson Seth Palansky, who is in Dallas for Thursday's game. “Bottom line is we're trying to get in as many homes as we can and we've been resisted by Time Warner Cable who says our product is a niche and not enough customers who are interested to offer it as a channel,” Palansky said.

Palansky claims it would cost the average cable subscriber $8.40 per year if it was available to all cable customers.

Some FCC commissioners wanted to force arbitration to solve this dispute but in a meeting this week, the FCC declined to take up the matter.

Dr. Connie Book is a professor at Elon University who studies the cable industry. She doesn't think this is an issue for government regulation. “But I think the marketplace works best when we let businesses hash it out,” Dr. Book said. “I'm not in favor of the government forcing cable companies to carry the NFL Network.”

If the federal government does not step in, two lawmakers from the Charlotte area say they will step in. Sen. David Hoyle (D-Mecklenburg) and Rep. Drew Saunders (D-Mecklenburg) have threatened to hold hearings and introduce legislation in the General Assembly to mandate binding arbitration between the cable companies and the NFL. Similar efforts are underway in other states; however Dr. Book believes individual states have no jurisdiction in this issue.

Starting last year, the NFL took eight games which had formerly been on broadcast networks or ESPN and put them on the NFL Network. The channel offers programming year-round, but those eight NFL games are its marquee events.

“And they're holding those eight games ransom right now for hundreds of millions of dollars and not letting our customers and their fans see those games,” Phillips added.

Palansky countered, “It's all about money to them. It’s time they look at their customer’s best interest and what consumers are paying for cable already and give them the programming they want.”

"In the United States, we have 110 million households that watch television," Dr. Book continued. "The average football game on the major networks will have about 10-12 million viewers."

So far, the only big winner in this dispute may be sports bars who have satellite service which includes the NFL Network. They predict sellout business for the game between the once-beaten Green Bay Packers and the 10-1 Dallas Cowboys.

“Absolutely, whenever it's a game just on the NFL Network the phone is ringing off the hook, whether we're going to have volume, it's very important to people, especially as good as this one,” said Champps bartender Anthony Murphy.

The Carolina Panthers are scheduled to play on the NFL Network just once, on December 22nd against the Cowboys. If the impasse continues, the NFL telecast rights will allow the game to be telecast by WCNC in the Charlotte market, but no one else in the Carolinas will see it on cable or broadcast television.

Time Warner Cable is the parent company of News 14 Carolina.