From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey
Subject: Re: ESPN Followup
Date: 5 Sep 92 17:18:25 GMT
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Distribution: na
Organization: Curious Goods (formerly Louis Vendredi Antiques)

mre@teal.Eng.Sun.COM (Michael R. Eisler) writes:
>
>Trouble was, that those 3 games were always east coast games starting
>at 4:30 pm Pacific. SC didn't seem to recognize that there are hockey
>teams on the west coast and near the Rockies, and some of those teams
>are even south of the border.

Also, I noticed that Sharks and West Coast road games were mostly
neglected by SC last year and most late starts were the central time
games involving the BlackHawks (8:35 PM ET face-off).  Some of their
programming decisions were unfathomable ... an SC client visits the
L.A. Gretzkys and it's not on the national feed.  Still, it's better
than nothing and you guys get a replay late at night, don't you?  I
have come home late (around midnight) just as the SCA replay starts.

>And, unlike ESPN, SC never showed the battles of Alberta, playoff
>time or regular season.  ESPN did have a much more balanced coverage;
>not U.S. teams only.

The biggest drawback about SC was that their "national" games were
just local broadcasts with the usual hometeam pandering, shown out of
the home region.  And, the focus was on the teams that had local SC
contracts (Islanders, Devils, BlackHawks, Whalers, Flyers, Sharks) so
if you weren't a fan or they didn't play your team enough times ...
too bad! )-;  Battles of Alberta or Quebec were part history with SC
unless that was in a playoff round after all of SC's clients were
eliminated ... despite all the games one could get involving those
teams, they were often not the best match-ups on any given night.

Just not restricting yourself to the six SC client teams, your
coverage gains incredible diversity.  There had only been one special
coverage season game per year, Rangers at Oilers (Mark Messier's
homecoming) last year and Kings at Habs (why?) the year before.

>If ESPN performs as they did in spring of 1988, this deal is a 
>winner for me.

Since there are 3 Islanders games and 10 Devils games not covered by
SC New York (often due to conflicts with the Mets or the Nets), and
similiarly for the other teams whether SC clients or not, there must
be plenty of regular season games to pick from and I hope that those
get picked up by ESPN to get around local blackouts.  As far as I can
tell, only the Whalers, Rangers, Kings and Flyers have every one of
their regular season games covered locally but even there, ESPN could
be given the live feed where a local would have normally settled for
tape delay.

Personally, I'd say give SCA a contract for non-Friday games ... there
is the rest of the weekend, ya know ... SCA has been spreading things
out more by selling game packages to third party cable sports outlets
like SportsSouth and some local Primes where no SCA or local pay SC
exists, so it's not like they were totally bad (just quite bad (-;).

gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				
> gld@cunixB.cc.columbia.EDU		Oct 26/92: Just say "OUI!"
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			(Let's worry about the economy!)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey