There seems to be a consensus (aside from Mike Machnik) on this subject
that I
find amusing.  The posters seem to be offended both by the advertising
and the
idea that they might have to pay to receive a broadcast.  Then would
someone
please tell me how the broadcasts are going to be paid for?
 
The existence of free broadcasts (not limited to sports, of course) is
something of an anomaly, and one that we shouldn't necessarily expect to
last.  There are very few things in life where someone else (the
advertiser)
pays for a product that you consume.  In the print media, advertising
only
pays part of the cost; you still pay a significant subscription fee or
newsstand price.
 
Has it been nice to get hockey games for free?  Sure.  But that doesn't
change
the fact that I have, essentially, been freeloading on the system.
(Particularly since I tend to watch games on videotape and fast forward
through the commercials.)
 
These changes are only going to accelerate as cable and Internet
broadcasting
fragment the viewing audience to the point that it becomes difficult to
produce enough viewers of any one program for the advertisers to want to
pay
for the whole thing.  On the positive side, this fragmentation does mean
that
I have a lot more choices.  Unlike Richard Hungerford, I DO follow the
NHL
and, through my subscription fees to ESPN and ESPN2, I was able to watch
all
but two of the Red Wings playoff games this year.
 
As to the particular gripe about corporations sticking their names on
everything, I concede that I find it annoying as well.  But as Mike
Machnik
pointed out, our sport, as a whole, loses money.  At most of the schools
that
play hockey, there is nowhere else in the athletic department that can
subsidize this loss.  Every advertising dollar that is forgone must be
replaced by one from the taxpayer (in the case of public universities)
or from
funds that otherwise could support the educational mission of the
university.
Which of these options would you like to go with?  Or should we
drastically
cut back on what we spend on hockey?
 
I certainly concede that one does need to be careful and draw the line
somewhere.  Advertising along the boards I have no problem with at all.
Allowing Diet Coke to put its name on the infoline is a bit irritating,
but
mostly harmless.  The one current practice that I really object to is
renting
out the players as billboard space as is currently done by Nike.
 
In fact, one of my problems with the corporate sponsorship trend is that
the
corporations are wasting money.  From the data I've seen (and
admittedly, I'm
no expert in this field), I find it rather doubtful that, say, Tostitos
makes
back what it spends on sponsoring the Fiesta Bowl.  My suspicion is that
corporate executives have found a way to spend shareholders money to
allow
themselves to hang out with the jocks.  For an egregious example of
this, read
Barbarians at the Gate, a book about the takeover of RJR Nabisco, for
the bits
about Team Nabisco.  The rest of the book is good, too, but not
applicable to
this discussion.
 
J. Michael Neal
 
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