I am really starting to get frustrated with the incompetence in Finnish cable broadcasting..
They buy each others rights for sports every year, you have no idea who will broadcast what and when.. Viasat made huge investments for KHL, SEL , FEL , NHL hockey channel, and now year later NHL is in lockout, KHL is no longer shown, and they have rights for 1 game per month in FEL.. I can watch more games for free from Veikkaus (State owned betting company ) .. Its truly ridiculous.. And it takes forever that politicians get the law passed that you can buy every channel from every cable operator..
So does anyone have better understanding about the Viasat KHL agreement and why did they stop airing the games? Because that Viasat hockey package was awesome..
It totally sucks, because you don't know which package to buy in order to see FEL. It's certainly big ****ing joke. I'm just watching games through urho.tv, which is working OK, but still sucks.
Too bad the KHL didn't see the NHL lockout coming. Would be a great chance for them to capture a big portion of the market. If they had been ready for this with an english web tv portal, english speaking announcers and quality broadcasts, they could have really stolen viewers from the NHL.
I'm sure they wouldn't make much of an impact on the market in NA, but the more convenient game times would probably appeal to the European audience.
Too bad the KHL didn't see the NHL lockout coming. Would be a great chance for them to capture a big portion of the market. If they had been ready for this with an english web tv portal, english speaking announcers and quality broadcasts, they could have really stolen viewers from the NHL.
I'm sure they wouldn't make much of an impact on the market in NA, but the more convenient game times would probably appeal to the European audience.
to be honest, the hardcore fans will tune to watch the KHL no matter what and it would of been a very large investment into something that might last only a couple weeks. As long as KHL has english commentary and better broadcast, they will get their NA fans even when there's NHL back.
Honestly, so much of what raises the profile of a sport depends on how it is presented. I mean, you look at the rise of the NBA and NFL in the US as opposed to MLB. Baseball was the largest sport in the US by far; perhaps 50 or so years ago, it was all baseball, boxing and horse racing.
Marketing, presentation and accessibility had a huge impact in changing the sports landscape. NBA and NFL did excellent marketing -- it invested in grand shows, commentators, personalities, etc. It made its stars household names. It got great TV deals, and promoted itself through movies and music. They constructed narratives for their sports. Conversely, for example, boxing went pay-per-view and started shrinking as a result. I hope the KHL has a bigger picture in mind; it might seem more tempting to ask consumers to pay to watch, but I think it's more important to get your product out there and make it a part of the mainstream culture.
The KHL could learn quite a bit. I think the KHL can really seize the opportunity here -- in Russia, hockey is already the second most followed sport. So while it is popular, it still has a lot of room for growth. In some of the other countries, like Latvia, it is the most popular sport. Obviously the KHL has a lot that it can learn directly from the NHL. But beyond that, it can learn quite a bit from other successful sports leagues.
These early years will be important for the league.
Too bad the KHL didn't see the NHL lockout coming. Would be a great chance for them to capture a big portion of the market. If they had been ready for this with an english web tv portal, english speaking announcers and quality broadcasts, they could have really stolen viewers from the NHL.
This is pipe dreams. The moment the lockout finishes all of them would turn away and back to the NHL regardless of how much is invested into promotion. "It's our boys, our arenas, etc" as simple as that.
This is pipe dreams. The moment the lockout finishes all of them would turn away and back to the NHL regardless of how much is invested into promotion. "It's our boys, our arenas, etc" as simple as that.
It's not a pipe dream, tho. American viewers are not likely to keep watching, but European viewers are very much up for grabs. It doesn't take long to create team and league loyalty.
The KHL has one huge advantage over the NHL, and that is the time difference. For viewers in central and northern Europe, most games in the KHL start in the afternoon, while games in the NHL start at 1am.
For a league a that aspires to expand and attract more European viewers, it seems very defensive to say: "They'll just return to the NHL when the lockout ends". Some might, some would stay with the KHL, and others could start following both leagues.
That`s not what i excpected ,hope the show improves over the time.
It did improve. Here's the latest episode from them:
This time they invited 2 good guests instead of 1, S.Gimayev & A.Shirikov (the latter is the CEO of VTB Basketball league), and let them chat for a while. The end result was decent.
,hope the show improves over the time.
