• Jhex@lemmy.world
    43·
    3 months ago

    It was already worse than 2 subscriptions before… now they ensured that people who are dumb enough to give them money could not say “well, I guess I can skip Monday games”

    So they have segmented the broadcast further; showing zero care or respect for their customer base in Canada

    In time this will backfire badly. We used to be a fam who watched Hockey when our kids were little, because of that my now grown son had asked to “get back into it” (we had already given up) so we pirated the feeds because it’s cheaper and better service than any official broadcast partner. He could not believe we needed to check the NHL site to find out which service was carrying “today’s game”

    It is easy to see how so many families would just decide to go without and the fan-hood that is passed from parents to kids as they watched sports as a family would be over. Even now, most of my sons’ friends could not care less about Hockey which was definitely not the case in my generation. Good job Bettman!

  • Rawrosaurus@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    32·
    3 months ago

    Reading this thread makes me so happy I long ago lost interest in watching sports. It sounds like a complete headache to be a fan of any sport these days.

      • Larry@piefed.socialEnglish
        5·
        3 months ago

        It’s awful. I tried watching the NBA finals after years of not seeing commercials almost ever, and it was just unwatchable

        • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
          1·
          3 months ago

          Sport + Americans = enshittification. They ruined F1, and more football hydration breaks are coming. They took over MotoGP and immediately killed the most popular race, then race those stupid Harley baggers.

          Fried chicken, Powerade, pizza, Pepto bismol, laxatives. Repeat. They sell you food you have to drug yourself to eat. Now “fans” only watch because they gambled on the game.

    • LaLuzDelSol@lemmy.world
      4·
      3 months ago

      NFL isn’t bad, at least if you just want to follow your home team. The games are still broadcast free over the air, just got to buy a $20 antenna and you’re set for life.

    • stonedonkey@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      Not only is watching sports harder it’s littered with cheating because betting was let get it’s hooks in it.

      You’ll never know if you’re watching a legitimate game… looking at you NBA.

      • cosmos8188@leminal.space
        1·
        3 months ago

        Betting or gambling in general is a disease. Not only does the house have a superior advantage, it has an observed harmful impact for all.

  • stolig@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22·
    3 months ago

    These greedy sports teams are going to lose our young people since they can’t watch… and they won’t have many fans in the future

    • Rooster326@programming.dev
      1·
      3 months ago

      Isn’t it already on the decline?

      I mean eSports has already taken a significant piece of the adrenaline pie, and there is no such thing as “blackout” for any of the major competitions.

    • Crashumbc@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      3 months ago

      Football and basketball are still good, but pretty sure baseball is losing popularity especially amount younger fans. This isn’t helping either.

    • BigDiction@lemmy.world
      9·
      3 months ago

      Damn I just assumed plopping down $450 for Sunday Ticket got you every game, but it doesn’t include primetime games at all!?!

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
        8·
        3 months ago

        They’ve continually devalued Sunday ticket as a product. I’m surprised Google isn’t more pissed about it, as they paid a fuck load for the rights to be the exclusive seller.

      • Prox@lemmy.world
        2·
        3 months ago

        I believe Sunday Ticket only includes the Sunday games and literally nothing more. It’s pretty much bullshit.

  • tripledip@lemmy.world
    13·
    3 months ago

    Same deal with F1, couldnt renew my F1 sub without getting apple TV. Ive never owned an apple product in my life, not gonna sub to their garbage. Bye F1tv.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
      18·
      3 months ago

      What really pisses me off is having lived in Las Vegas, where they shut the whole Strip and a bunch of surrounding areas down for this race. Not sure if they do it every time but they also shut down the famous Bellagio fountains and covered the view with ugly scaffolding!

      For the race itself, not only can you only watch it via a subscription stream, they also block off any local infrastructure with a view, such as the pedestrian bridges, so that the only eyes able to actually see the thing happen in our own city on our own streets paid ~$2000 for the privilege.

      The classism on display is insane. The city is all about entertaining the obscenely wealthy globalist class, and the people that make it all run are serfs.

    • Lenggo@lemmy.world
      2·
      3 months ago

      While it pains me to mention reddit, a certain sub has allowed me to watch basically any region or subscription locked broadcast for F1 and IMSA event I’ve wanted for a while. Just need to make sure the ad blocker is up. There is zero chance I’m subbing to Peacock to watch a handful of sportscar races throughout the year

    • kaotic@lemmy.world
      1·
      3 months ago

      I agree, I dislike the vendor lock-in. But to be fair, you don’t have to own an Apple product to watch Apple TV Plus, and honestly, some of their content is quite good. Roku and even a PS5 can stream content from that network. That being said, the vendor lock-in is reason enough to boycott them.

  • onTerryO@lemmy.caEnglish
    12·
    3 months ago

    Me: Well, at least I can watch for free on CBC on Saturday nights.

    Rogers: Yoink!

  • Leviathan@lemmy.world
    8·
    3 months ago

    I would never give these billionaire fucks a dime. I’d rather go watch beer leagues at the local rink.

  • 9point6@lemmy.world
    8·
    3 months ago

    Oh is this another one of those shitty things we have been leading the world with in the UK?

    I think we’ve had as many as 4 subscriptions to legally watch all the broadcasted* matches of a top flight football team some years

    *You still miss half the matches played because of the Saturday 3pm blackout, which prohibits those matches being broadcast

    • Jhex@lemmy.world
      8·
      3 months ago

      They are just begging for you to find a good pirate service and stop giving them money… you should definitely honour their wishes

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      3 months ago

      I think we’ve had as many as 4 subscriptions to legally watch all the broadcasted* matches of a top flight football team some years

      One of my pirate feeds for the World Cup had an annoying “Scan this QR Code to pay for your TV license” graphic in the corner. How do you people live like that?

    • ThePowerOfGeek@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      3 months ago

      You need two different subscriptions to stream Premier League matches in America. I thought that was bad enough. But the UK situation sounds significantly worse.

  • BigDiction@lemmy.world
    7·
    3 months ago

    ESPN+ was actually good if your team is in another TV market, but not broadcasting all the national playoff games was ridiculous - cancelled it.

    I’m very close to Canada, bought try an antenna to grab the CBC broadcast.

  • Dozzi92@lemmy.world
    7·
    3 months ago

    I just wanna give a shout-out to the Blab, who has been illegally broadcasting Mets and Rangers games (and other stuff, including jeopardy and Seinfeld) for more than a decade now. I gave you like .01btc in 2017 or 2018, and that’s definitely a lot more now than it was then, but you deserve it.