Article in the Toronto Star High-Def TV Luring Americans to the NHL (http://www.thestar.com/sports/article/716539--high-def-tv-luring-americans-to-nhl)
Quote from: Robert Cribb, Reporter"HDTV will have a greater impact on hockey than any other sport," says Matthew Pace, a lawyer with prominent sports law firm Herrick, Feinstein in New York. "You can follow the puck much easier (on HDTV broadcasts). The action is clearer. I think the television future of the NHL is bright."
Many Americans complain the game doesn't translate well onto a television screen where the untrained hockey eye, unaccustomed to the flow of the world's fastest game, struggles to follow the puck. Currently, the league's primary U.S. television deal is with cable firm Versus (reaching just over 70 million U.S. households) along with the occasional game on NBC. But a more ambitious role for hockey in the U.S. is unfolding, says Neal Pilson, former president of CBS Sports and founder of his own television consulting firm. "Because hockey is probably the most difficult of the major sports to follow on television, HDTV has helped hockey more than the other sports."Much is riding on that technology-mediated assistance.
... The best prospect for the NHL, say experts, would be interest from ESPN as a competitor to Versus or even adding ESPN to the stable, experts say.The Fox Network's now infamous FoxTrax (also referred as the glow puck), the last major technological attempt at making the game more accessible to Americans, streaked across U.S. TV screens between 1996 and 1998.
"Full frontal nudity. And chimps."
Almost all sports suffer from being idiot-boxed, but not because of resolution: yes, with HDTV, it's easier to see the puck, but the problem with almost any sport on TV is that you are limited to seeing what's going on right around the ball or puck. For example, in baseball, the only players you ever see preparing for a pitch are the pitcher, the batter, and the catcher: it's like the rest of the fielders don't exist. Similarly with hockey, you never see what the defense or near-side wings are doing. In football, you only see the interesting routes of the wide receivers on replays, and even then only if the ball is thrown and typically only if caught, and then you still miss out on what the other players are doing.
MLB got this mostly right when they implemented MLB.tv by giving the viewer the option of multiple camera angles: I personally keep mine on either mid- or high-home plate, where I can see everything that's going on on the field at all times. If only NHL and the NFL would do the same thing. And pity the fools who came up with the HDTV standard, lacking multi-angle support: it's a symptom of the increasing conflict between viewers, who demand more personalization and interactivity, and content providers, who want to cram everyone into one of 5 demographics. They will lose, and the internet will win. Boo-yah.
Quote from: Trotsky"Full frontal nudity. And chimps."
Beats "Bread and circuses."