The Sports Media Thread

[The_Admiral]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's maddening that the NHL never figured out a way to syndicate Hockey Night in Canada in the United States, especially in the late '80s and early '90s when so much of cable television here was just cheap crap from Canada. Yes, it would have been selling mostly Toronto Maple Leafs games to an American audience, but it's still the league's weekly showcase that just never existed in America, and the other three leagues had no issue flowing south to north. That failure stands out to me more than the SportsChannel deal, which was a bad bet but not the embarrassment of retreating to the Outdoor Life Network, nor the flagship broadcast not existing for most of the league's footprint.

[Digby]

I haven’t thought about USA Network since the 90s. I don’t even think my streamer gets it! But maybe that explains the strategy, considering NBCSN is car shows and video game racing for 90 percent of the time anyway, perhaps USA is similarly dire. There are too many TV channels.

[TrueYankee26]

Soccer fans get the Shaft faster than you can say bad mutha shut your mouth. NHL and NASCAR? Fine. EPL whoa whoa do not want to anger the people who enjoy SVU that their show is being booted for soccer.

[Digby]

if they bumped all of the EPL to Peacock, I’d be more fine with that, but inevitably the NBC and USA games will still require a cable/streaming service subscription and won’t be available on Peacock.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

NBC has botched their sports coverage more than any other network has botched its coverage.

 

Why is it so hard to just be able to watch EPL and Champions League? Why do I need 7 different streaming subscriptions?

[Kramerica Industries]

8 hours ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

NBC has botched their sports coverage more than any other network has botched its coverage.

 

Why is it so hard to just be able to watch EPL and Champions League? Why do I need 7 different streaming subscriptions?

 

Not for nothing, but a quick look over at /r/soccer will tell you that this not only isn't a uniquely American problem, but that some other countries have even more convoluted soccer distribution (in terms of number of services needed for number of different competitions) problems than the US has. Which, you know, most of us don't live in those countries so we don't know much about them and, more importantly, don't have to experience those problems, but as far as being annoyed by having the PL on NBC and Peacock, having the CL and EL on CBS, having Italy and Germany on ESPN+ (with the occasional Italian game on ESPN2 at 3:30am PT on Sundays), Spanish football on BeIn Sport...I guess the easy summary for that is that all of those are very expensive sports properties individually. It would be extremely difficult for any one media company to get all of those under their umbrella. 

[The_Admiral]

So apparently American soccer coverage is just the ghost of BIll Wirtz saying "what if HawkVision pissed you off even more"

[Burkell007]

Well I’ll put it this way to make is really easy to see why nbc did this:

 

USA is in 90million households 

NBCSN is in 81 million

FS1 is in about 83 million

CBSSN is in 68 million 

ESPN is in (only? I figured more) 86 million

 
so there getting more eyeballs to watch by default.

[nickp91]

USA Network is in something like 6 million more homes than NBCSN so it's certainly not a bad switch for the NHL Plus getting a 2nd broadcast partner in Fox will be very big for the league.

[TVIXX]

NBCSN will shut down at end of 2021 as several sports properties will shift to USA Network, according to reports (msn.com)

[officeglenn]

Covering this topic in the existing Sports Media Thread, so I'm gonna merge it.

[neo_prankster]

24 minutes ago, TVIXX said:

NBCSN will shut down at end of 2021 as several sports properties will shift to USA Network, according to reports (msn.com)

 

USA Network is available to slightly more homes than NBCSN right?

 

Why not merge NBCSN with the Golf channel?

[The_Admiral]

Even those classic car auctions NBCSN runs when your RSN has exclusivity on a hockey game are better TV than golf.

[infrared41]

On 1/22/2021 at 6:21 PM, the admiral said:

I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's maddening that the NHL never figured out a way to syndicate Hockey Night in Canada in the United States, especially in the late '80s and early '90s when so much of cable television here was just cheap crap from Canada. Yes, it would have been selling mostly Toronto Maple Leafs games to an American audience, but it's still the league's weekly showcase that just never existed in America, and the other three leagues had no issue flowing south to north. That failure stands out to me more than the SportsChannel deal, which was a bad bet but not the embarrassment of retreating to the Outdoor Life Network, nor the flagship broadcast not existing for most of the league's footprint.

 

FWIW, in Toledo back in the 80's, we had CBC on our cable package. (It may still be there, I don't know)  I cut my hockey teeth on Hockey Night in Canada. If Toledo, Ohio managed to find a way to carry CBC, I have to think it would have been easy enough to pull it off in other markets.

[Digby]

14 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

FWIW, in Toledo back in the 80's, we had CBC on our cable package. (It may still be there, I don't know)  I cut my hockey teeth on Hockey Night in Canada. If Toledo, Ohio managed to find a way to carry CBC, I have to think it would have been easy enough to pull it off in other markets.

 

When I lived in the northern reaches of New England we had all the big Canadian channels on the standard TV packages -- that was my intro to Don Cherry! His Bruins era was mercifully before my time -- but even once you get to Boston you don't get them, somewhat surprisingly.

[Kramerica Industries]

11 hours ago, infrared41 said:

FWIW, in Toledo back in the 80's, we had CBC on our cable package. (It may still be there, I don't know)  I cut my hockey teeth on Hockey Night in Canada. If Toledo, Ohio managed to find a way to carry CBC, I have to think it would have been easy enough to pull it off in other markets.

 

I've never had reason to look at Toledo on a map before, but, looking at it now, it's a border city to Canada*, so that's not a surprise at all. Obviously, it's not like transmission signals run into an invisible barrier at the border, so CBC and other Canadian networks finding their way onto US television in locations near the border, and vice versa as well for American networks in Canada, is one of those little perks to living near the border, if you're interested in what those networks have to show and if they have anything that otherwise doesn't air on US networks.

 

EDIT: No, it's not.

 

This little fact didn't go unacknowledged by one of hockey's most famous broadcasters:

 

 

[infrared41]

1 hour ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

I've never had reason to look at Toledo on a map before, but, looking at it now, it's a border city to Canada, so that's not a surprise at all. Obviously, it's not like transmission signals run into an invisible barrier at the border, so CBC and other Canadian networks finding their way onto US television in locations near the border, and vice versa as well for American networks in Canada, is one of those little perks to living near the border, if you're interested in what those networks have to show and if they have anything that otherwise doesn't air on US networks.

 

This little fact didn't go unacknowledged by one of hockey's most famous broadcasters:

 

  Hide contents

 

Toledo is on the border of Michigan. Canada is a good 60 miles north of us. Anyway, we didn't get CBC over the air. CBC was carried on our local cable system. Apparently, our cable system made the choice to carry CBC Channel 9. I can't remember if the over the air signal out of Windsor was strong enough to pick up in Toledo. I'm sure Detroit and Windsor had the on-air carry over you referred to. In fact, when I was in grade school, the most popular radio station around was 800 AM CKLW out of Windsor. It was what us radio people call a "flamethrower." Its signal was so strong that it was clear as a bell throughout most of Ohio. Even though it broadcast out of Canada, CKLW was positioned as a Detroit station at the time. It was the undisputed champion of Top 40 radio. Today, it's a full on Canadian talk station and I'm pretty sure the signal was either turned down or redirected towards Canada because we can barely pick it up these days.

 

EDIT: Speaking of flamethrower radio stations. Last week, I was listening to WTAM 1100 out of Cleveland - while I was driving in Spring Hill, FL which is 1060 miles from Cleveland. 50,000 watts and a clear channel will do some distance on AM radio.

[Kramerica Industries]

3 minutes ago, infrared41 said:

 

Toledo is on the border of Michigan. Canada is a good 60 miles north of us. Anyway, we didn't get CBC over the air. CBC was carried on our local cable system. Apparently, our cable system made the choice to carry CBC Channel 9. I can't remember if the over the air signal out of Windsor was strong enough to pick up in Toledo. I'm sure Detroit and Windsor had the on-air carry over you referred to. In fact, when I was in grade school, the most popular radio station around was 800 AM CKLW out of Windsor. It was what us radio people call a "flamethrower." Its signal was so strong that it was clear as a bell throughout most of Ohio. Even though it broadcast out of Canada, CKLW was positioned as a Detroit station at the time. It was the undisputed champion of Top 40 radio. Today, it's a full on Canadian talk station and I'm pretty sure the signal was either turned down or redirected towards Canada because we can barely pick it up these days.

 

Oops. Misread the map I looked at. Careless mistake, so thanks for setting me straight on that.

 

[infrared41]

3 minutes ago, Kramerica Industries said:

 

Oops. Misread the map I looked at. Careless mistake, so thanks for setting me straight on that.

 

 

At least you didn't refer to us as a suburb of Detroit like a lot of people do.

[JayMac]

On 1/22/2021 at 10:05 PM, Digby said:

if they bumped all of the EPL to Peacock, I’d be more fine with that, but inevitably the NBC and USA games will still require a cable/streaming service subscription and won’t be available on Peacock.

If Peacock was the only way to watch EPL, then fine, I guess. But I feel that their quality is lacking for live sports.