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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."
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).
It really depends on where you are, too. The upper midwest states are heavy into hockey of all levels. MN broadcasts its highschool hockey tournament live, for example (which lasts about a week). Until I moved from MN, I had no idea NHL wasn't on par with the NFL and MLB in terms of viewership in the US.
I'm sure this has nothing to do with a team from California being in the finals.
Any fan of hockey will tell you that there's no way teams like Anahiem, LA, San Jose, Nashville, Florida, and several others that I'm probably missing deserve to be in the league.
People in those towns don't care (remember how many Flames fans there were in Tampa Bay for that series?), and people around the league don't care about those towns.
Call me a troll or whatever, but if you're wondering why viewership has gone down in the NHL, the two big reasons are too many crap teams from cities who don't care about hockey, and the instigator rule, which encourages dirty play.
Again, mod me troll for this, I don't care... many (all?) of my hockey friends will tell you the exact same thing.
~/.sig: No such file or directory
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.
My mom says I'm cool.
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.
...Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
Churchill
Damn straight! I'm sick of the NHL pandering to American interests, when probably 98% of their population don't give two craps about Canada's popular sport.
They scheduled several Saturday playoff games at 2 in the afternoon, killing CBC's nighttime ratings twice (they lost all their night viewers, and even most Canadian hockey fans would prefer to be out on a warm and sunny afternoon after months of chilly weather). And why 2pm? Because of NBC, probably because they already had Saturday night commitments. In Game 5 of the Eastern finals, the game went into overtime. NBC ended their broadcast after the 3rd period, and so didn't air the goal that eliminated Buffalo and sent the Ottawa Senators to their first Stanley Cup series since they were resurrected as a team in 1992. That's the commitment the NHL gets from NBC.
Don Cherry called it a few nights ago, when he was guest commentator on the NBC broadcast. He lambasted Americans trying to turn NHL hockey into "family" sport. That the fighting made it a less "serious" sport. He rightfully pointed out the hypocrisy in this as parents let their kids watch UFC and take them to WWE matches. He made pointed reference to NASCAR too, though I didn't understand the connection.
Now, I'm not saying fights in hockey are exactly a GOOD thing, nor am I saying UFC and WWE (expecially WWE) are taken seriously either. But it's clear that violence in the latter sells a hell of a lot more than a fast-paced hockey game in the US. The NHL should never have expanded south as much as it did--it drove up player salaries and other costs until communities that actually cared about the game saw their home teams move to where they're not appreciated.
Yes, I'm bitter we lost the Stanley Cup--yet again--to a US team, in another city where a mere kilometre away from the arena passers-by didn't even know the final game of the championship was being played out.
And in relation to this rant, I just realized the absolute irony of my Slashdot ID.
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.
One of the reasons I like the playoffs is that I can pick whichever team has players from my college. Since my local team is the Bruins, I don't have to worry about having to cheer for my home team.
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.