AT&T has more to gain than lose by this being successful, since they pay out billions in retransmission fees. They're already playing hardball on retransmission agreements recently, with the current CBS blackout being only the latest example[1].

AT&T added Locast to both their DirecTV and Uverse TV receivers[2], which limits the impact radius of the blackouts that are resulting from their strong-arm tactics. And in the case of DirectTV's receiver, it's a pretty seemless process as the blacked-out channels in the guide automatically redirect you to the equivalent channel in the Locast app.

A $500k donation for such convenient leverage is chump change, considering the billions of dollars that are on the line with these retransmission agreements.

[1] https://deadline.com/2019/07/cbs-blackout-directv-u-verse-at...

[2] https://www.broadcastingcable.com/news/at-t-locast-is-option...

That’s brilliant. TIL!