For clarity I just mean watching hockey. As far as American sports go hockey is so much more appealing than football or baseball. It has all the suspense of baseball, the speed of basketball, and the physicality of football plus everyone's skating. Plus they're not constantly taking penalty shots and pretending to get hurt like in basketball. Also strangely enough illegal hockey streams are the only ones I've seen where no one is saying racist/homophobic/transphobic/other reactionary shit.

  • star_wraith [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I love hockey. Used to watch it a lot more but don't now. The simple reason is the ads (so I'm just talking about the NHL here). Sports are just a vehicles for delivering ads and selling shit. But the NHL takes this to an extreme. With those big ads around the blue line, it feels like their getting to the point of covering the playing surface with ads, which other sports don't do. That's in addition to the ads along the boards, on jerseys, and superimposed on the netting. It's just past a tipping point for me.

    I explain this to hockey fans and they think I'm crazy. They don't get why seeing a screen full of ads would bother me if I love hockey. I can't help but think the excessive amount of advertising even relative to other sports is a turn off for more casual fans, idk.

    • AllCatsAreBeautiful [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The level of advertising is insane but it doesn't feel any worse than football. Plus I watch streams with an adblocker on so that helps a bit. The ads in the middle of the game that pop up and block the screen are the worst.

      • john_browns_beard [he/him, comrade/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        IMO it's exponentially less intrusive than football, which is pretty much unwatchable for me, especially during the playoffs.

        The new digital ads on the boards are a bit distracting, but other than that I don't even notice the other ads on the playing surface. With NHL games, the commercials during the periods are scheduled at 6, 10, and 14 minutes into the periods, plus the clock doesn't run when the game is not being played, so it's not like football where you often get 10 seconds of action in between long-ass commercial breaks.

        NHL games have one of the best action to total game length ratios out amongst televised sports. https://imgur.com/y0wErLS