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National Hockey League Embraces TV Placeshifting
Egadfly writes "The 'placeshifting' technology that allows digitally recorded shows to be watched in several locations is growing increasingly popular. One particular reason for this popularity is because it enables sports fans to view locally blacked-out games over the Internet. The National Hockey League (NHL) has announced that it will actively support placeshifting by signing an agreement with SlingBox-maker Sling Media. The agreement will allow the company's "Clip+Sling" technologyto share both live and recorded NHL programming over the Internet. Significantly, this has happened only days after Major League Baseball (MLB) launched a public denunciation of placeshifting, accusing SlingBox owners of violating the law by sending television content over the Internet and accusing Sling Media itself of violating contracts with cable and satellite TV companies."
This totally paves the way for a sport that doesn't suck to do this.
No one watches it anyway so what revenue are they trying to preserve?
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Somebody's watching. Unlike MLB, I guess they're getting used to new shifts in tech.
Plus, given the strike, and the fact that NHL hasn't enjoyed the same American fan-backing other sports have, I'm pretty sure they're just happy someone's watching.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
... but I still won't be able to see the puck on the screen. Great.
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This is probably going to really hurt for the "NHL Center Ice" people who carry the majority of games, which seems to mostly be used by people who moved away from their favorite team's area
God Fucking Damnit
They could just put the games on a real network instead of Versus. Half of the Detroit market couldn't see half the playoff games the Wings were in.This works too, I'll be able to actually watch games instead of having to drive to my folks house. This won't help the NHL from continuing to alienate their less technical audience.
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I'm betting this is almost entirely due to the terrible ratings the NHL has been getting in the U.S. recently. Game 3 of the finals had a record low for NBC (lower than reruns of their crappy dramas!)
...that content creators make is EASIER for me to watch the content that they create. This can only mean more viewers, watching more of the content they create, which is a good thing all around.
Unlike MLB, which wants you to only watch their content on their terms. Screw that!
Back in 1996, FoxTrax came into existence. It used state of the art technology to wrap the puck in a "glow" onscreen (and for kicks Fox added "comet trails" to the puck when it was fired at high speeds).
You know what? It COMPLETELY SUCKED. You know why? Because ANY IDIOT can see a black object against a bright white surface.
Not to mention, it was completely invasive. Contrast it with the yellow line shown during football games. Out of the way and easily ignored.
Hockey's problem in America isn't that Americans can't see the puck. Americans so the puck just fine during the NHL resurgence back in the 90s. Hockey's problem is that Americans won't return to any sport after a lockout unless the players have salaries greater than the GNP of some small nations (baseball).
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Won't all this video clog the internet pipes? Its not a dump truck you know...
lol: You see no door there!
Indeed, plus, it's pretty damn easy to *infer* where the puck is from the actions of the players onscreen.
Though I gotta say, I got an HDTV a few months ago, and hockey in HD is friggin awesome.
I'd probably buy an NHL season pass via Xbox Live if if the content was HD and at least price-competitive with an NHL cable subscription.
... then again my nerdy coworker just showed me a Slingbox session streaming through his Treo phone and now i kind of want one.
Or, I'd be motivated to buy an AppleTV. I think most iTunes tv content isn't HD yet.
I'm not so sure about buying a Slingbox.
. We've got computers, we're tapping phone lines, you know that ain't allowed - Talking Heads, "Life During Wartime"
Let me guess: you don't live in Canada? ;)
The XFL was yanked after getting a then-record low 1.5. Which means that about 450,000 more people watched the LEAST-watched XFL game than watched the NHL Finals.
Not to bash the southern teams too badly, but they don't fill the buildings, they don't watch the local broadcasts, etc.
New Jersey can't sell out playoff games, so it's not a uniquely southern issue. If the on-ice product is so boring you have to advertise the competition coming to town, you have a problem.
The biggest problem with those teams is that they were the markets that were easy to expand to. Which meant more teams with the same number of quality players. So the league is diluted and bums are allowed to skate with future legends. Some of those bums attack other players because they aren't all that great at an NHL level without it. Scott Stevens, I'm looking at you.
I love what Don Cherry said during Game 4. People who believe that Americans won't watch hockey because it's too violent are crazy. Americans watch football, and ultimate fighting and Nascar. They don't watch them for incredible skills, they watch for the hits. Unlike football, ultimate fighting and Nascar, hockey has hits AND skill. Anybody who believes differently has probably never put on a pair of ice skates.
One last thing, I have no doubt that one reason that fewer Americans watched was because a Canadian team was in the finals. Everybody I talked to about the games were in two camps. The ones cheering on Anaheim weren't watching the games and just hated Canada. The ones watching each game intently were cheering for Ottawa.
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As a hockey fan, it pains me to say this, but the people suggesting this is a desperation move by a league struggling to stay relevant in the USA are absolutely right. Low ratings for game 3 on NBC are one thing, but the real icing on the cake was when NBC pre-empted overtime during the Sabres-Senators series to show a pre-game show for Preakness. In Canada, this caused a minor outrage, but it didn't really matter since CBC showed the whole glorious game. In fact, I doubt many people up here know what "Preakness" means. Sounds like a soft drink or something. Any NHL fan can tell you the sport is floundering stateside: During the first-round series between Calgary and Detroit, it was damn near impossible to get tickets to watch the (utterly horrific) Flames on home ice. Meanwhile, some friends of mine traveled to Detroit and snapped up tickets on game day! And they were cheap! And they were great seats! And the Wings were playing about 100x better than the Flames. Finally, and slightly more on-topic, at the beginning of the playoffs, CBC announced that they would be doing on-demand streaming for all broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada. At the end of the day, the league is pulling out all the stops trying to convince US audiences they should care about hockey. The Placeshifting issue is just one example of that. It won't work. Maybe they should convince NBC to fire Brett Hull, then people would be able to stomach the NBC telecasts? No, probably not. Sigh.
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And I'm a Broncos fan.
But, doesn't your team play in a dome? Kind of easy to pick on a team's fans that "don't like the cold" when you get a heated balloon to watch the game inside.
Nonetheless, I do agree, my fellow Broncos fans are kind of silly.
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whose teams didn't make the playoffs.
If it weren't for my dish, I couldn't have seen the majority of the games during the season since only 2-5 games were on a week. Once the playoffs rolled around, I got to see them all, again, thanks to my dish.
And as far as "ratings" go, do they tally me and the people who come over to watch the games? Nope, I don't have their magic box. Now, why is it that Family Guy was canceled again? Oh yeah, low ratings. So few viewers that it set records when it hit DVD and came back from the dead.
The NHL doesn't have low ratings, the idiots that count the viewers don't count the viewers.
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It'll be entertaining to see when this takes off (It's not a matter of if, the beta is that good.) how loud the networks start screaming when these guys not only eat their lunch, but drink all their beer too.
ANY IDIOT can see a black object against a bright white surface.
You're misunderestimating the caliber of idiots that the USA can produce.
I say he, because I doubt a female would have referred to herself in that manner. I've dated a field hockey player. She did it to keep in shape for the ice hockey season.
fo'rizzle
that some people get it, and some people don't, and the degree to which you "get it" depends upon how happy you are with the status-quo.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Like hockey, NASCAR is a sport which is not supposed to include violence. But a NASCAR race that went perfectly smoothly would just be cars going around a large oval track really fast somewhere between 100 and 500 times (with the occasional pit stop), and after a while that could get stultifying for a viewer. It gets most interesting right when car-related violence happens.
There are no rules against violence in NASCAR: it's just presumed that self-preservation and trying to win the race would discourage people from encouraging car crashes at 150-200 miles an hour. Now NASCAR has teams--groups of race cars all owned by the same people--so that's no longer a 100% effective tactic. Dale Earnhardt Sr. died some years back near the end of a race when he drove his car into a wall; I believe he did it on purpose, to prevent a rival car from going forward so that another car in his team could get the lead before the post-crash flags froze the racecar order.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Now the NHL can add literally, tens of viewers to their US audience. Fuck you NBC.
And in a side note it's just a matter of time before the US is down to 16 NHL teams thankfully.
Effing Ducks. Go Sens.
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I'm glad to see it. A few years back the NHL started introducing "special effects" like creating a sort of "halo" around the puck to easily spot it behind the boards or the red trail when the puck broke a certain speed. I suppose if they didn't change with the times they'd still play without helmets and have chain-link instead of Plexiglas...
You're right, the ratings are bad for hockey (in the US anyway), and licensing deals with YouTube, and this recent placeshifting move, aren't going to bring back the viewers either. But I know what will: dropping the stupid instigator rule they put in place some years back to curb fighting. Even NHL GM's are realising the penalty should be abolished because it makes it impossible for enforcers to protect star players, and it robs the game of strategy and excitement.
Let's face it, hockey fights rule, and it's what the people want to see.
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The NHL has never, ever had great ratings on national television. Part of this is indeed a lack of interest. The NHL will never have the interest of any of the other three major sports, and somebody's got to be fourth. But the other major problem is quality hockey in quality markets. Ottawa and Anaheim in this year's finals, Carolina and Edmonton in last years. Why did the ratings suck? because if you add up the populations of those four (Anaheim proper, excluding LA) cities, you're probably not much bigger than Chicago. They could have drawn a 30 share in the American team's city and not made a dent nationally. It's the nature of the sport. Hell, NBC national games featuring Detroit and Buffalo (cradles of US hockey) performed poorly on a national level, but drew Super Bowl-level interest locally. For the NHL to make a dent in national TV ratings, they need a New York Rangers - Los Angeles Kings final every year. (I'd say an Islanders - Kings final, but who are we kidding? I'll sniff a super model's panties before the Isle's sniff a Stanley Cup Finals game.)
FYI NBC does not pay the NHL for rights to broadcast games nationally. Even if hockey draws poorly, it's essentially free to the network. NBC is well aware of how Hockey draws in the US, but knows that they will always make money on any game they show. Some of their Saturday games this year did outdraw the competing NBA games.
As for the deal with slingbox, it's not really desperation. The NHL just landed a fat deal to stay on CBC in Canada (THANK GOD) that dwarfs any of the money Poker and UFC are getting. This on top of the waaaaaaaaay overpriced deal that Comcast (owners of Versus) coughed up in an attempt to legitimize their network (and to give a middle finger to ESPN). Being the red headed stepchild of pro-sports gives Hockey a chance to reach out. Hockey needs to keep it's ratings where they are. They can't afford to alienate even a small percentage of their remaining fan base and if they can find an edge, any edge, to pull an extra 50 or 100k pairs of eyes, they'll do it. Maybe enough folks will latch on to the idea to make the big sports change their tune.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
I find it intriguing that the NHL comes down in favor of placeshifting and MLB comes down against it when they were both in favor of timeshifting. The difference, now, is that MLB has a strong product while the NHL's U.S. audience (not wonderful in the first place) has dwindled to insignificance. If MLB had just come off of another player's strike, you'd bet they'd be in bed with Slingbox, antiquated territorial broadcast rules be damned.
The blame lies squarely on whoever approved the deal with Versus. The lockout was bad, but other sports have survived that; the TV deal was the death knell. Like someone else already pointed out, when PLAYOFF OVERTIME hockey is pre-empted by HORSE RACING PRE-GAME (admittedly Triple Crown, but still) you know you have a fucking problem. For fuck's sake, the actual race is over in 2 minutes! Who the fuck watches 2 hours of "analysis" for a 2-minute event? Luckily I have Verus so I was able to switch over and catch the rest of the game. Whoever is responsible for the NHL-Versus deal should be BANNED FROM ALL BUSINESS TRANSACTIONS FOR LIFE. Also, I am fucking tired of the "Power play brought to you by KFC Famous Bowl!" Is that the most fucking ridiculous sponsorship or what? Gary Bettman is a fucking idiot.
In Canada the Fox glowing animated puck was ridiculed pretty heavily and is still used as a reference to the lower sport intellect of large majority of Americans.
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San Jose
Have you paid attention to how well these teams you listed are actually doing, or are you just grouping the Sharks in there because it's a California city you've never heard of? San Jose (along with Dallas) has become one of the more successful areas the NHL expanded to in the 1990s, both business and support wise. The city of San Jose along with the rest of the Bay Area has practically embraced the team, especially since they moved to the Sharks Tank 14 years ago, and HP Pavillion is regularly at 97+% attendance for Sharks games.
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This is a great move by the NHL. This won't cause the Center Ice package to lose money, since you can't actually watch the sling + clip clips live.
I have a HD-DVR cable box, so i can control my dvr and cable box all from my slingbox. Being on the road 4 out of 5 days a week, slingbox has been a lifesaver. And being a fan of the NHL, i can actually enjoy my center ice package using the slingbox.
NHL players have also embraced this technology. The NJ Devils were given Slingboxes as a Christmas present. I know that a bunch of them use it on the road to follow other teams/friends.
The NHL struggles with viewership. My solution, put it back on ESPN!!! The coverage on ESPN is so much better than NBC/Versus. Get that boring-ass Bill Clement off the air and that moronic Brett Hull off the air as well. Mike "Doc" Emerick is the only good thing they got going for them. Also, shrink the league so that they get rid of any team that doesn't have atleast 5 days of snow a year!
I really should work for the NHL, I'd turn it around real quick.
Chicago used to be a big hockey town before they started blacking out games if they weren't sold out. Guess what? A whole generation basically never watched the games on TV and now they have no fans. Not that I really care about hockey.
I just go by what I see when I watch the games on Center Ice.
I'm sure my northern bias is in play when I watch the game and yell "Look at all those empty seats! Stupid hockey in the south!"
And I bought my HDTV for hockey. If you can't be at a game to watch the play develop, HD is the next best thing. Standard definition games are fine when the Canadians are running the cameras. They generally pull far enough back that you can see the play develop. But the jackasses at the game in the front few rows know it, sit there on their cell phone and stand up and wave every time the puck goes in their end since they know they're on TV now. Yes, Detroit, I'm looking at you.
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I just wait for them to blow it IN the playoffs so that my hopes are dashed that much harder. At least your team has the decency to suck up front. Mine strings me along and then commits suicide in new and increasingly heartbreaking ways.
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1. A team south of the Mason-Dixon line doesn't deserve to win the cup according to some canadians albeit the team probably has more canadian players than the opponent.
2. Garry Bettman is evil and only panders to US needs.
3. Winnipeg and Quebec deserve their teams back.
4. Don Cherry is fair and balanced in his views especially when it comes to european players.
5. If your team loses there must be something wrong with the referees (universal)
6. If you're seeing a blackhawks homegame on tv in Chicago you're on drugs.
7. If the other stanley cup finalist has an european captain they will lose.
8. If you don't speak french and play for the Canadiens you're shit out of luck when it comes to the media. Mon dieu.
9. Russians stop playing after they get a big contract.
10. Pronger debunks newtonian physics and comes up with his own. Don Cherry praises him for it since he's a good canadian boy with a heart of gold.
There's probably even more which I forgot as usual but in general when hockey fans start arguing about the sports logic is the 1st casualty and truth the 2nd but it's like that with most sports. Slingbox deal is a step in the right direction but what I'd really like them to come up with is a streaming service where one could just watch the games you want for a modest fee but I really doubt this will happen anytime soon.
The NHL needs to die so that the game itself can continue to live.
Death to the NHL, long live hockey.
On Saturday, a rerun of "Mama's Family" and a show called "Build a Better Burger" both had better ratings than the Stanley Cup finals game that was on.
The game was the lowest rated show ever in the history of primetime network television*.
This is why the NHL is embracing any technology that might help.
* - Ratings facts from one of this week's Pardon the Interruption episodes on ESPN.
> Indeed, plus, it's pretty damn easy to *infer* where the puck is from the actions of the players onscreen.
Having watched hockey since I was 8, this is natural for me. For hockey-n00bs (like my wife), they need to be taught to do this.
Uhh, Correlation doesn't equal causation, or whatever the saying is. I don't think American's research player salaries before they decide to watch a sport. No matter what country you're from, stereotypes make you sound stupid.
It's hard to believe no one else posted an ISR joke.
Actually hockey is just pretty boring now.
The NHL should focus on getting Boston/NY/NJ/Chicago fans riled up about the game again. As a Canadian I'd love to say that the Canadian teams should be the league's focus, but that won't save them. Ottawa in the Cup should have been awesome, but even many Canadians tuned out. And nobody even in LA cares about the Ducks. I mean damn - Dallas, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Anaheim - these are the poster team Cup winners? I'll grant that maybe some people like the Stars (I don't) but no one gives a crap about the other ones.
Maybe this is what Americans felt like when Edmonton and Calgary and Montreal kept showing up in Cups in the 80s/early nineties. But to me it reminds me of nothing so much as the CFL's ridiculous expansion into the USA. Shreveport? My god the folly of the Rocket winning for Argos and not giving a crap about the Cup he just won. The sad spectacle of Baltimore winning the Cup before the league finally came to grips with reality. That tainted the Grey Cup for me.
I don't mind American teams, I love to hate them even, but the trouble with the NHL's expansion is that I don't CARE about half the teams anymore. Columbus? Nashville? Phoenix?
Cut to 24 teams. Focus on developing/strengthening real rivalries and letting good skilled players shine.
The thing about the NHL is that as a business, it's more about ticket-buying butts in the seats than national TV deals. As far as attendance and ticket prices go, by and large the NHL is doing quite well. That's why RIM's Jim Balsillie is ponying up $220 million for the Nashville Predators, and there's word that expansion teams may be coming soon to Las Vegas and Kansas City.
Most commentators (particularly sports-radio hosts) associate national TV ratings with the overall health of a sports league, and in hockey, that's never been a huge factor here in the US.
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How does a computer generated tracking effect have anything to do with "sport" intellect? What's intellectual about hockey anyways?
You're not supposed to watch the puck. You're supposed to watch the players.
The share is the only number you can use for a comparison like this, not the rating. A show with 5 million viewers on Thursday night might have a 4 or 5 share. A show on Saturday afternoon with 1 million viewers might also have that same 4-5 share. If you compare the ratings, the Thr night show appears to just blow-out the Saturday show. No contest, really. But the share is excellent and the show a hit.
Agreed, HD is huge for hockey. I won't be surprised if the NHL gains popularity once HD finds it's way into more American homes. Heck, I even watched about ten minutes of a baseball game because it was in HD.
This is true, being a Brit in Ottawa I just watched my first playoff series. In the beginning I didn't have a clue where the puck was (I was watching in SD).
By the end of the finals I was able to figure out where it should be by the players positions, however I still hardly see the damned thing.
Clean hitters don't hit from behind, don't go for the head, and don't do it on a consistent basis.
Pronger's a bum. And I still think Stevens is worse.
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Yeah, the Packers fans deal with the professional cold. I respect the hell out of Packers fans. I saw Vikings fan, and just went off on that trail.
Not that going to a Vikings game at 30 below doesn't suck. But inside, it's nice.
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You mean kind of like the CHL, where here in Vancouver where the Memorial Cup was a bigger event than the Stanley Cup?
Of course, this may have had something to do with the Canucks getting kicked out of the playoffs in the second series, while the Giants won the cup.
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Amen, brother. I am a lapsed Bruins fan myself. The league ought to forcibly yank the team out of Jeremy Jacobs hands and make him sell it to someone who actually gives a shit about the sport. One other thing that has turned me off as of late are some of the newer rule changes. Some are great, I love the tag-up offsides rule and elimination of the two-line pass foolishness, it really keeps the flow of the game going. What bothers me is that they have almost taken the defensemen out of the game. If you want to plant yourself in from of the net, you have to expect a stick in your teeth, you have to earn that spot. The refs have really just ham-strung the defense with all of these penalty calls. That ain't interference, that's just good solid defense.
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