I was on iTunes earlier today, looking for some kids TV shows to put on my iPod so my daughter doesn't flip out during a long car trip this weekend. I found what I was looking for -
Yo Gabba Gabba and the Wonder Pets, in case you were wondering - but I also found something else.
Yo Gabba Gabba and the Wonder Pets, in case you were wondering - but I also found something else.That "something else" would be an entire section of iTunes dedicated to NHL games.
I had no idea this even existed. You mean to tell me I can go into iTunes and download classic games for $1.99 each? You also mean to tell me I've had an iPod for five years, accessed the iTunes store at least once per month over that period of time, and didn't know these games were available for download? That's insane.
And that, of course, is the Gary Bettman era in a nutshell. In this information age where technology is at our fingertips, it might be nice to inform NHL fans that they can download and watch full games, at their convenience, for a very reasonable $1.99 fee. Let's not forget, NHL fans are probably the most tech-savvy of all sports fans. Since newspapers are dropping NHL beats like flies as the papers themselves struggle to stay afloat, hockey fans have embraced the blogosphere to a much greater degree than the fans of any other sport. We have HockeyFights.com and tons of clips on YouTube, and hockey fans love these resources. Do you really think these same fans wouldn't love to discover the NHL's treasure trove of downloadable games?
We all know the NHL isn't the strongest promotional arm out there. But iTunes is a great way to reach out to fans - and to then allow fans to return the favor. Throughout the season, each team's official website could run a poll to determine fans' favorite games and then put those games on iTunes. I know the NHL has done a pretty good job with the DVD sets they've released, but there's a way to have these DVD sets work with their iTunes offerings. Especially in these dog days of summer, where we're all craving any sort of hockey we can get.
What bothers me even more, if you go to the NHL Classics section, is that there's only five games. Not only that, but if you compare the 2009 Stanley Cup Finals section to the other sports they have - baseball and basketball - those sports all have a season pass for the Finals that offers a discount over the end price; ie, for the Lakers set, it has ten games (throughout the playoffs) at $14.99 for the season. For the NHL Finals? The entire season is $13.93. $1.99 X 7; if you want the Finals, you will pay *every cent*. This, of course, after I dropped $150 on Centre Ice, and got the combined MLB/NHL deal so I could watch games online, on an online system I can best describe as "fucking broken".
ReplyDeleteThis is the Bettman Era, alright. We can't build our base past the northern US and Canada, with the exception of a few pockmarks in San Jose and Dallas, so we're going to bleed our fans for every cent we can, and we'll get away with it because for those fans, hockey is a lifestyle and they can't live without it. If any lesson was learned from the lockout, it was that, as attendance, I believe, went *up* for the '05-'06 season (as opposed to MLB after '94). We fucked ourselves because we played our hands, and now they're going to break us the way they broke the NHLPA.