Let's begin with the New York Islanders, my hockey club. I must admit I haven't followed the Islanders too closely in recent years, a combination of them being truly terrible for years and the fact that hockey was about to go the way of the dodo bird. But hockey is back, the playoffs are starting and, yes, the Islanders were in the show. Not only that, they beat the top-seeded Buffalo Sabres Saturday night to even up their best-of-7 series at one game apiece. I would love to go into great detail about the game, the magnificent play of goaltender Rick DiPietro or how the winning goal was scored. Alas, I cannot.
I know that I don't get MSG or Fox Sports NY, so I don't watch the Islanders during the regular season. But Saturday night was different, the Islanders were playing on the Versus network, which I assume is a national network. However, when I turned on the channel Saturday night, I was not greeted by that beautiful, classic Islander logo. I was greeted with bull riding. And a message crawl on the bottom of the screen that said that Versus was "not permitted" to show the Islanders game in my area. Why? Who knows. They weren't on any other channel. Oh the joy of living in Hartford, Connecticut. I'm used to it by now.
You see, I'm also a huge Mets fan. I don't get to see a lot of Mets game. The Mets have their own channel now, SportsNet New York. My cable company does not offer SNY to me. I don't hold a grudge against Comcast, the Mets tried to replicate the Yankees' success with the YES network and seem to be failing. I do get YES, I don't get SNY. That doesn't upsets me.
It upsets me that even if I got baseball's Extra Innings package, the game would be blacked out. How do I know? Because last week was the free preview for the Extra Innings and the Mets games were blacked out. As frustrating as that is...it gets worse. The Mets play some games during the week on ESPN2 and, you guessed it, they're blacked out too. Why? Again, who knows?
Let's review. In the span of one week, two games involving two of my favorite teams were on national cable channels that were blacked out in my area despite the fact they weren't on in my area. Does that even make sense? Why? Why does Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League hate me so much? How, in this age of technology, can I not watch my teams play? Why does it seems like professional sports leagues seem to go out of their way in a vain attempt to squeeze more money out of consumers while providing less of an incentive to pay attention?
It's also worth noting that the New York Giants' regular season finale, for Giants fans in Hartford, was also not seen unless you got the NFL Network because it was only allowed over the air in New York City. So if you lived in Hartford, a mere two hours away, you could have missed the Giants playing for their playoff lives. It just never ends, does it?
I have e-mails out to the NHL and MLB trying to get an answer as to why the Mets & Islanders are blacked out on my cable system when I have no conceivable way to watch them otherwise. This sucks.
Sean O
Update, 4:20 p.m.:
It looks as if maybe the NHL doesn't hate me as much as I thought they did, as I received a response to my e-mail inquiry..
The Islanders are on at 7 p.m. tonight on Versus and I hope like heck it'll be on. I do not want to watch more bull riding. Major League Baseball has not yet responded and I'm not holding my breath.Good Afternoon Sean -
Thank you for your email. You have brought about a good point and after looking into this situation, we found a technological problem. The problem has been resolved and you should be able to view the game this evening. Please keep me posted on what happens as your feedback is greatly appreciated.
Thanks again. NHL TV
12 comments:
that's what you get for living in Hartford.
I'm in the same situation. It's ridiculous. We live 15 miles from Massachusetts and closer to Boston than New York, but somehow this is considered part of the Isles' and Mets' home markets for national TV games. Just absurd.
As a Marlins fan living in Montana, I feel your pain. My problem is not so much the blackouts as the fact that the Marlins are never on national TV, and Extra Innings is not available to me.
Also, I have some friends who are major Mariner fans, and they are still fuming over the Daisuke/Felix matchup having been blacked out, despite the fact that we live 1000 miles from Seattle, apparently the game was on Seattle TV so ESPN 2 blacked it out for us, since Montana falls under Seattle and Denver's viewing areas.
The MLB blackout rules are beyond ridiculous. I actually mentioned Montana when I posted about this last week:
http://www.cruzich.com/2007/04/major-league-baseball-blackout-map.html
Pity the fans in Iowa and Nevada, with *6* teams blacked out.
That blackout map isn't totally accurate. I live in Dayton OH, and Time Warner blacks out not only the Reds but my two favorite teams, the Tigers and the Indians (neither of whom have a cable package available to me). Toward the end of last year, they were even blacking out the White Sox's ESPN games. My only explanation is that Time Warner hates the American League.
It's completely ridiculous - there are so many games on TV now that the idea that not showing a game as somehow beneficial to your "home market" game seems like an outdated notion. I've lived in Indiana for a few years, so I'm lucky enough to get all of the Cubs and White Sox games (lucky in the number of games - I hate the Cubs), but for some reason my cable company will block out most nationally televised Indians games and Reds games even though neither team has a cable package available to me. The shame is that nothing ever gets done - like an idiot, I took the time to figure out all the restriction rules and zip codes and cable packagess that apply to prove there was no reason for me to have Indians games blacked out and all I got was a "oops, that shouldn't have happened." Of course, it happened again and again after that ...
Yeah, the blackout restrictions has ruined my week. I'm from Buffalo but am in Southern CT for school and was all set to watch the Sabres on Saturday but when I turned on versus fucking bullriding was on. I have searched the internets (for hours) for some way to watch the game tonight but haven't found anything yet. If you find a way I'd appreciate it if you posted it.
That map is a few years old, so it's possible things may have changed since then. It sounds like they may have changed for the worse.
The first Twins game broadcast over FSN this year was blacked out on DirecTV in the Twin Cities. I furiously called DirecTV to complain, only to have the guy tell me the Twins must be blacking out their own hometown. I called the Twins office directly, and the guy assured me the Twins weren't blacking any games out. DirecTV finally figured it out and stopped blacking it out after about 3 innings. Stupid F'ing TV companies.
Get this...I live in South Bend, IN and all I want to do is watch the Red Sox. FIVE MLB teams are blocked in South Bend...Detroit Tigers, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, St. Louis Cardinals, and Cinci Reds. WTF? Why even bother? The closest of these teams I could even drive to see is two hours away. Talk about a blackout zone...can anyone top 5 MLB teams blacked out?
For TV online, try www.sopcast.org or http://www.tvunetworks.com/downloads/player.htm
I'm an American in China, and this is how we watch sports that are otherwise TOTALLY unavailable.
Suggestion: Move down I-91 to the New Haven area. Comcast New Haven gets NESN, YES, SNY, TBS, MSG, the ESPNs, and Vs... plus the NYC and CT networks.
This means that every night I can watch not only my Sox, but the yanks, mets, or braves games, and any game on the national networks... and during football season, I can get the Pats on the CT stations, and Jets and Giants on the NY stations.
Of course, we don't get FSNY, which is what you'd need to get the Isles... Get a slingbox and a buddy back home. Problem solved.
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