Screwed By Local TV Network...Again

New name...same frustration

Some way, some how, my local sports tv network always finds a way to screw me over. If you've read my blog, you know that I absolutely hate it when games are on the 'plus' channel. Or even worse, when my Sharks are preempted by another event that happens to be taking longer than expected. Well, this was the case again last night. Comcast Sports Network - Bay Area, previously Fox Sports Network - Bay Area, did not endear themselves to a number of Sharks fans who were forced to watch A's baseball rather than the first 10 minutes of the NHL post-season.

Don't get me wrong...I'm a baseball fan as well and it was nice to see the A's come back and win it in the ninth. However, give me a break. How can the network executives decide that it is ok to preempt a Sharks playoff game for the A's who were playing game 9 of a regular season that is 162 games long?! Absolutely ridiculous.

The most frustrating part of it is that I couldn't watch it on the Versus network either. Given the local broadcast agreement, the game was blacked out on Versus. Normally, I have no problem with that because it makes sense...the local telecast should take precedence over the national one for revenue purposes. But when Versus is being blacked out for what is essentially an A's telecast, it makes me angry. If the local telecast isn't showing the Sharks game, then the national blackout should be lifted.

Given all of the new technology these days, couldn't CSN put up a simple picture-in-picture? Or maybe a side-by-side? No...instead, they put up a little blurb at the bottom of the screen that said that the Sharks were up next after the A's game...simply not good enough.

Well, again, the A's are being televised before the Sharks game tonight. Let's see if we run into the same situation as last night. If so, I won't be surprised, but I will still be frustrated and angry.

A San Jose Sharks Blog