Jumping Through Hoops For TV Choices

The major pro sports leagues are generally not directly tied in with what goes on in the media, but this week provides a solid example of why they should be. They all make a large percentage of their revenue from the television rights. Rights fees which are ultimately passed along to sports fans, and millions of non-sports fans, via the increased costs for cable/satellite providers so we can watch.

From a logistical standpoint, it's easy to understand the NBA deciding to begin the regular season a week sooner than in the past. This allows them to spread out the schedule a bit more and get an earlier start on the playoffs.

However, from an intelligence standpoint, there are plenty of reasons to question the timing. The game nights for the 2019 World Series were announced months before the NBA regular season schedule came out. What this means is that the NBA knowingly put its two opening nights (one for a couple of spotlight games, the second for the majority of the teams) up against Games 1 and 2 of the MLB World Series.

Some will defend this by arguing that the demographics that watch the NBA are not as excited about watching the World Series as they used to be. While that is a reasonable argument, the point is that it forced many fans into making a choice. Under the previous opening games for the NBA season, they may or may not fall up against Game 6 and/or 7 of the WS. At least they have the chance of being unopposed. This week, however, only inclement weather would have put the NBA openers on unopposed.

Before arguing that the ratings have been less than stellar (to put it diplomatically) for the first two Astros vs. Nationals matchups, this is not appropriate for this discussion. The Nationals simply do not have the fan base outside of D.C., nor the tradition of generation after generation. There was a large possibility that the Dodgers or Cardinals, two teams with large fan bases, could have been playing on Tuesday and Wednesday. They would have also gone on against the NBA doubleheaders.

Granted, the prime time sports landscape is more limited for the NBA than in the past. There were many years when the NBA did not have to worry about NFL games on Mondays, Thursdays, and Sundays taking up three nights of prime time.

Fans of more than one sport shouldn't have to jump through hoops (pun intended) given the increased cost to watch them on TV or devices.

Meanwhile, it was quite the coincidence that both ESPN and Fox Sports lost MLB analysts within hours of each other. The official announcements that Joe Girardi was being hired as Phillies manager and David Ross as Cubs manager came at almost the same time. Girardi leaves his analyst role with Fox Sports (as well as MLB Network), while Ross was providing studio and game analysis for ESPN for the past couple of seasons.


CHICAGO: Regional network NBC Sports Chicago, which now is making a big promotional splash about being the exclusive local home for Blackhawks and Bulls telecasts this season, needs to stand behind their coverage. Specifically when it comes to their streaming of the games.

On Oct. 18th, the Blackhawks game against Columbus was going into overtime, and I received their text alert to that effect on my phone. Not being near a TV, I went to their app to watch. All I got in two attempts was the opening of their pre-game show introducing the telecast, and not the live stream of overtime.

Then, on Oct. 23rd, while using their phone app to watch (or try to watch) the final few minutes of the Bulls regular season opener against Charlotte, their stream was working. However, the stream contains different commercials than the actual telecast, and adds more of them. Because of this, an entire scoring play out of a time out was missed on the stream with about 90 seconds remaining.

The game went down to the last few seconds. A time out was called with a few seconds remaining. The stream feed ran an extra batch of commercials. Sure enough, when it returned to the stream, we got the final score as part of their sign off, since they failed to show the last few seconds which decided the game.

Fans are paying increased fees to be able to view the games via cable/satellite and on their devices. It is not a privilege. If they must oversell the advertising, let the advertisers pay our fees and give us what is promised.

INDIANAPOLIS: Scott Pollard and Charlie Clifford served as Noon to 3 PM co-hosts on WFNI The Fan 1070 all week, but only as a replacement. Dan Dakich was off, but for the purpose of serving a five day suspension by station management. No public reason was given for the suspension, with the only announcement being that "a failure last year on Dan's part to adhere to journalistic principles".

Have to wonder if the infraction happened all those months ago why a suspension was not invoked until this week.

Dakich has been with WFNI for more than nine years.