Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Now the world is gone, I'm just ONE

My distaste for Sportsnet has always been fairly rampant and I have never had a problem voicing my displeasure. For years, Calgary Flames fans have been forced to bear their incompetent camera work, watch Nick Kypreos struggle to obtain a grasp on the English language, and listen to Peter Loubardias' absolutely dreadful play-by-play commentary. But now, somehow, the fat cats at Sportsnet have found one more way to fuck their fans:

Introducing: Sportsnet ONE!

I will try to explain the premise of this channel as best as I can. If I am not correct, I would love to have that pointed out. I seriously hope that I just don't understand what they're doing here.

Sportsnet ONE is a new channel, available on Shaw, that shows more sports than Sportsnet. Think of it as TSN 2, except (a) of inferior quality, and (b) unnecessary because Sportsnet does not hold a candle to TSN's broadcasting team, experts, panel members, basically anything that makes a sports show worth watching.
 
Nick Kypreos prepares for broadcast

Sportsnet West used to show all the Flames and Oilers games on their network. If two games were coinciding, for example, Edmonton played at 6:00pm in Edmonton while Calgary played the same night at 7:30pm in Detroit, one of the two games would be moved to PPV. This meant something like 10 games a year that, if you wanted to watch, you could through PPV. It was bullshit, but at least you didn't have to front the entire cost yourself, and there were "special features", like going inside the dressing room and other weird shit.


Made it that much easier to swallow the $15 price tag. Also, look how small Dion is...

Supposedly, there was enough of a market to require having a channel that is separate for Calgary to show their sports. According to the Flames schedule, there are eighteen Flames games this season broadcast on Sportsnet Calgary...Which still means there are 36 more games broadcast on Sportsnet West.

This means, that in order to watch these games, Flames fans are now forced to subscribe to Sportsnet ONE, so that they can get Sportsnet Calgary, even though there are still games being shown on Sportsnet West.

So many questions pop into my mind it is actually ridiculous:

1. Regional discrepancy

I live in Edmonton. If I order Sportsnet ONE, do I need to order Sportsnet Calgary? Will I be defaulted to Sportsnet Edmonton? I don't fucking want that.
Yeah, we get it.

2. Scheduling

There is one game on the Flames schedule that says Sportsnet Vancouver is broadcasting it. Will I get this channel automatically? Or will I be forced, if I wanted to watch on my TV, to subscribe to another channel for this game?

3. Replacement

Now that Sportsnet West has finally freed up its incredibly busy schedule, what is going to go in place of televised hockey broadcasts? I do not recall ever watching anything of merit on that channel other than hockey games. Not even highlight packages.

Holy fuck. This is Sportsnet's schedule.

This is absurd. At least with PPV you could go to a bar and watch, or have a group of friends over to chip a couple bucks each. Now you need an entire fucking channel. Absolutely obnoxious.

1 comment:

  1. So if the Beers beat Detroit and Denver beats Atlanta in the American Southwestern Division East Northern, then Milwaukee goes to the Denslow Cup. Unless Baltimore can upset Buffalo and Charlotte ties Toronto, then Oakland would play L.A. and Pittsburgh in a blind choice Round Robin. And if new clear winner emerges from all this, a two-man sack race will be held on consecutive Sundays until a champion is crowned.

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