{"id":2907,"date":"2024-11-15T11:06:38","date_gmt":"2024-11-15T11:06:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=2907"},"modified":"2024-11-15T11:06:38","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T11:06:38","slug":"breaking-blackhawks-players-know-chsn-fiasco-risks-sending-team-back-into-oblivion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/breakingnews.azontree.com\/?p=2907","title":{"rendered":"BREAKING: Blackhawks players know CHSN fiasco risks sending team back into \u2018oblivion\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\"CHICAGO,<\/p>\n

SEATTLE \u2014 Jason Dickinson has a vision of what sports broadcasting might look like in the not-too-distant future, maybe five or 10 years down the road. Every game will be available to every fan on one all-encompassing service. There\u2019ll be movies and news and live TV on there, too, and libraries full of endless hours of entertainment. It\u2019ll be one-stop shopping for all your viewing needs.<\/p>\n

Dickinson\u2019s even got a catchy name for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, cable,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019ll happen. Maybe the inevitable end of this drifting television Pangaea is a happy (and surely comically expensive) television Voltron. But for now, television and movie fans are asked to shell out $15.49 a month for Netflix, $16.99 a month for Max, $9.99 a month for Disney+, $9.99 a month for Hulu, $7.99 a month for Peacock, $7.99 a month for Paramount+, $9.99 for Apple TV+. All on top of whatever your live service is, whether it\u2019s Xfinity or YouTubeTV or Hulu Live or Fubo or GoJo or Goobi or Citgo or Shlomo or whatever they\u2019re called these days.<\/p>\n

On top of that, sports fans can spend $11.99 a month for ESPN+, $139.99 a year for MLB TV, $109.99 for NBA League Pass and $379 a year for NFL Sunday Ticket. Oh, and Amazon has the NFL Thursday night games (and weekly NHL games in Canada). And Peacock has some games now. And Apple has some exclusive baseball games.<\/p>\n

Yes, it\u2019s true you can watch more sports than ever now. But it\u2019ll cost ya.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re making it so hard for people to get the game,\u201d Dickinson said. \u201cWhy can\u2019t we just find a way to make it where, \u2018I want to watch a sport tonight. Don\u2019t care what it is.\u2019 And just flick on something? I\u2019m a casual fan for most other sports. The die-hard fans are going to find the games. But for casual fans, it\u2019s kind of a s\u2014-y situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the Chicago Blackhawks. If you\u2019re reading this column, if you\u2019re subscribing to The Athletic<\/em>, if you stayed up late on a Thursday night to watch the Blackhawks lose 3-1 in Seattle, you\u2019re probably one of those weirdos willing to shell out $19.99 a month for CHSN, the new television home of the Blackhawks, Bulls and White Sox, which was slated to be released in app form on Friday, with Smart TV versions due in \u201cthe coming weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n

But what if you\u2019re a casual fan? You like hockey, but not enough to stay up late on a school night. You love the Blackhawks, but only really get into them when they\u2019re good. Maybe your cousin plays for the San Jose Sharks, so you only watch the Blackhawks when there\u2019s not a Sharks game on.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the NHL channel on Comcast, and (NBC Sports Chicago),\u201d said Alex Vlasic, the Wilmette, IL native and Sharks fan. \u201cSo we could watch all the games back then. I definitely caught the Hawks when I could.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now you can\u2019t. Not without a whole lot of extra effort and money, at least.<\/p>\n

Here are your options if you live in the massive Chicago market, which stretches into Wisconsin and Indiana and in which ESPN+ blacks out Blackhawks games:<\/p>\n

\u2022 You can buy an antenna \u2014 good old-fashioned rabbit ears \u2014 and get the games for free over the air. Free! How great is that? But you\u2019d better have a room with a window that faces the city. And a high place to put that antenna (I have mine perched precariously on a picture frame on the wall). And you\u2019d better hope it\u2019s not too rainy. Or windy. Or too \u2026 clear? Hard to explain sometimes why the signal is glitchier than scrambled late-night cable was in the 1980s. Oh, and you can\u2019t pause or rewind. Or watch in another room. Or watch on your laptop or phone. Or rewatch games later on demand.<\/p>\n

\u2022 You can switch television providers to one of the ones that carry CHSN, such as DirecTV, Fubo, U-Verse or something called Astound. Xfinity subscribers might get it eventually, but it\u2019ll likely be on the most expensive tier, so you\u2019ll still be paying extra. YouTubeTV and Hulu Live users are out of luck, because those companies have no interest in local sports whatsoever. So the three most popular providers don\u2019t offer Blackhawks games. Sorry.<\/p>\n

\u2022 You can go full pirate and find sketchy live streams that bombard you with pop-up ads of dubious intent and the most vile comments section you\u2019ve ever seen. I definitely do not recommend this route, but it sounds like an awful lot of you are doing it this way.<\/p>\n

\u2022 You can pay for a quality VPN that fools ESPN+ into thinking you live in Burbank or something, and then cast it to your television through your laptop. Something tells me older fans who\u2019ve been watching since the HawkVision days aren\u2019t likely to jump through all those hoops.<\/p>\n

\u2022 You can pay $19.99 a month to watch the last-place Blackhawks play hockey on your laptop or phone. Or $29.99 if you\u2019re a real glutton for punishment and like watching the directionless Bulls and the hapless White Sox, coming off the worst season in baseball history. But hey, full season-ticket holders \u2014 the fans most likely to have disposable income \u2014 get the app for free.<\/p>\n

This is bleak, folks. And it could mean the death of the casual Blackhawks fan. It\u2019s a far cry from the heady days of the early 2010s, when the Blackhawks ran this town, when suddenly everyone was a hockey fan. Yes, there are 18,000-plus fans coming to the United Center every night. But are there even 18,000 fans watching at home? Are there 18,000 fans who can<\/em> watch at home? Rocky Wirtz put the Blackhawks back on TV when his father, Bill, died, because he knew one fundamental thing: If you\u2019re out of sight, you\u2019re out of mind. Now Danny Wirtz has to figure out a way to keep the Blackhawks in the public eye, or risk fading into irrelevance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s never a good thing for any business to just slip into oblivion,\u201d Dickinson said. \u201cYou need to make new fans. It\u2019s the only way for the game to grow. We don\u2019t need to find more ways to keep the die-hard fans. We want to keep them happy, we want to keep making it better for them. But we also need new fans. We need to get it to people. And if you have to subscribe to watch us, you\u2019re never going to become a new fan. You\u2019re not going to pay the $19.99 a month. You\u2019re not going to just try it out for a month. That\u2019s just not realistic. People who have $20 a month to spare for a \u2018maybe\u2019 hobby are few and far between.\u201d<\/p>\n

The players are aware of all of this. And it adds an extra layer of pressure. Not only do they have to go win a hockey game, they have to make it entertaining. They have to sell you on Blackhawks hockey.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to figure it out at home, especially when we\u2019re not on TV,\u201d Nick Foligno said after a loss to Detroit last week. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to find a way to get our fans excited about us playing here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n

\"Blackhawks<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As a franchise, the Blackhawks aren\u2019t totally to blame here. The shuttering of NBC Sports Chicago put them in an impossible situation. And they\u2019re hardly the only NHL team going through the growing pains of starting a new direct-to-consumer network. But Jerry Reinsdorf and Danny Wirtz can\u2019t sit idly by while this drags on. Fighting for advertising dollars rather than fighting for your fans is a losing strategy \u2014 in the short- and long-term. If nobody\u2019s watching the games, nobody\u2019s buying tickets. Nobody\u2019s buying jerseys. Nobody\u2019s even remembering you\u2019re there. The Blackhawks have been here before, just 20 years ago, and it wasn\u2019t pretty and it wasn\u2019t profitable. Hockey is already a niche sport. Unless the Blackhawks find a way to put their games in front of as many people as possible, that niche will only get smaller and smaller.<\/p>\n

Vlasic said he firmly believes Chicago fans are devoted enough to stick by the Blackhawks \u201cthrough thick and thin.\u201d And he\u2019s certainly right about the die-hards. They\u2019re not going anywhere, even if they\u2019re the most frustrated of all. But the timing of the CHSN launch is brutal. The Blackhawks are years removed from their glory days, they\u2019re years away from contending, and the novelty of Connor Bedard already has worn off a bit.<\/p>\n

This is the worst possible time to be asking fans to shell out more money.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at sports fans in cities where the team\u2019s just been struggling for five-plus years, not making the playoffs and not having any success \u2014 not just in hockey \u2014 the fans start to get a little irritated,\u201d Vlasic said. \u201cAnd then they start yelling. You don\u2019t want it to be like that. You want to be loved by your fans and your community. You don\u2019t want to be getting ridiculed.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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