Don’t Look Back – Someone Might be Gaining on You

I thought the Washington Capitals played a great game last night. The house was packed. We beat our budget and the crowed was rocking.

We are neck and neck for the best record in the NHL again.

Buffalo is a very talented team and they have great goaltending so scoring five goals feels wonderful.

We now play our next game against NJ. Then we play Carolina and then head out west to play two of the best teams in San Jose and LA. What a tough schedule to end the calendar year. And the decade.

Speaking of the decade, here is a piece by Comcast SportsNet on local sports teams in DC and our history. I think it pays a few compliments to us and is fairly accurate in its review of our team. We love and support our partners at Comcast but as long as we are offering up retrospectives and critiques, here is mine back to Comcast:

Get the issues between DirecTV and VERSUS channel fixed ASAP. This is an issue to our viewers and fans. It must get fixed in 2010.
Get more HD as promised. Why isn’t every Capitals game shot and broadcast in HD?
Fix the quality of CSN Plus. The picture shouldn’t look like 1970′s circa production value.
Iron out all issues with Verizon FiOS. I am tired of answering those questions about rebroadcast from our fans.
Promote the games on other channels/outlets. Promoting the games on Comcast SportsNet is preaching to the choir. Invest in broadening our collective reach.
Invest more in your website and portal. Comcast SportsNet.com is not very contemporary right now.

Thanks for being so supportive last night. The fans really Rocked the Red. Go Caps! Happy holidays.

12 thoughts on “Don’t Look Back – Someone Might be Gaining on You”

information provided by the dudes is very useful for us, Thanx to alllllll ….

Get the NHL to fix Gamecenter Live. I live in Maine and I have no access to Caps games unless they are national games. So, I pay $24 a month to watch the games, and ever since the break, 75% of the games I can not watch until 48 hours after they are completed. I am left going to bootleg sites to watch unauthorized feeds. So the NHL is not getting my viewing dollar at all in those cases. And the fact is, since I can find the games on unauthorized feeds, I see no sense in keeping the Gamecenter Live unless they are going to start showing all games live. So, the NHL, by delaying the broadcasts on their own site, has cost themselves my $24 a month. I will be watching bootleg feeds from now on until such time as all games, regardless of where they air on cable, air live on Gamecenter Live.

Just curious… I know this has been an odd season with the Olympic break, but I imagine in the average season they play in the neighborhood of 12 games a month. That works out to approximately $2 per game. I wonder what the per-viewer value is of a single game on Versus. I’m betting it’s well below $2 per viewer. So I pay more and am more valuable, but I get told I have to wait 48 hours? No, Versus should wait 48 hours. The NHL’s own website should have all the games live for people willing to pay the $24 a month.

Why not move the caps to all HD MASN who does not have any winter sports and can be all about the caps!!

Agree w/all but especially moved to comment on #2. I’m a Caps season ticketholder and feel like just maybe for once the person delivering what we all spend our hard earned dollar on cares enough about their product to want it delivered in a manner that doesn’t short-circuit the very ripe-to-be-expanded fan base. The clowns up in Philly just don’t get that ratings only come with a willingness to be bold and invest in the quality of the content broadcast. Ted does and has, which is why the Caps are as exciting to watch as they are and why I thank God that we have an owner who cares so much about his product and customers. I pray for the day when fly-by-night outfits like CSN (which survived to wrest control of broadcast rights solely by default and collapse of all other competition) no longer have the liberty to degrade the product of the content rights-owners solely due to the effective monopoly they have in place.

Ted, here’s an idea: Start your own network. CSN is junk, I’m sure you could do much better.

Ted,

Appreciate the words on CSN+ and also expanding HD coverage. Much, much needed for the fans. There are great storylines across games and fans can miss out when there is channel-jumping and bad production quality.

Certainly HD is more of a benefit to hockey than basketball.

Glad you said this!

-Jason
A Caps fan in Virginia

Agree 100% with everything here.

“# Get the issues between DirecTV and VERSUS channel fixed ASAP. This is an issue to our viewers and fans. It must get fixed in 2010.
# Get more HD as promised. Why isn’t every Capitals game shot and broadcast in HD?
# Fix the quality of CSN Plus. The picture shouldn’t look like 1970’s circa production value.”

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Spot on, Ted.

CSN Plus is awful. We live near Richmond, so we only make it to Verizon about 8 games a season. Therefore we rely on CSN alot. When the game is on CSN Plus, depression sets in. My kids and I just guess at who has the puck because the jersey numbers and picture are so fuzzy. “Was that Alex who just scored or Erskine?” (the picture is that bad). Overall however, from a positive standpoint CSN does a good job (I grew up with the Caps on the old Home Team Sports network). One suggestion however, David Poile used to submit to interviews between periods, perhaps George McPhee could sometimes do this.

Ted,

One video-related wish from a fan/STH…please have someone point out to the in-house camera folks that they’re using HD cameras and they can take a wider shot and keep it more stable rather than zooming in waaaay too tight which results in a replay that is blurry and well behind the action. It’s a little thing, but one which we would greatly appreciate.

Ted, you are right on!!! I can’t believe that #2 is out of your mouth as well. My wife and I ask the same thing. I feel better already knowing that this frustration makes #2 on your list. Hockey is SO much better in HD. How else can you see how amazing that Morrison goal last night was?

Amen on the issues with Comcast Sports Net! As a Philly resident, I always appreciate those very rare cases (often when the woeful Flyers aren’t playing) when they actually broadcast Caps games in their hometown market, but it’s obvious their operations aren’t keeping up with their growth and expansions.

world cup 2010 betting poll on June 13, 2010 at 9:22 PM said:

information provided by the dudes is very useful for us, Thanx to alllllll ….
JacK Bartram on March 20, 2010 at 3:51 PM said:

Get the NHL to fix Gamecenter Live. I live in Maine and I have no access to Caps games unless they are national games. So, I pay $24 a month to watch the games, and ever since the break, 75% of the games I can not watch until 48 hours after they are completed. I am left going to bootleg sites to watch unauthorized feeds. So the NHL is not getting my viewing dollar at all in those cases. And the fact is, since I can find the games on unauthorized feeds, I see no sense in keeping the Gamecenter Live unless they are going to start showing all games live. So, the NHL, by delaying the broadcasts on their own site, has cost themselves my $24 a month. I will be watching bootleg feeds from now on until such time as all games, regardless of where they air on cable, air live on Gamecenter Live.

Just curious… I know this has been an odd season with the Olympic break, but I imagine in the average season they play in the neighborhood of 12 games a month. That works out to approximately $2 per game. I wonder what the per-viewer value is of a single game on Versus. I’m betting it’s well below $2 per viewer. So I pay more and am more valuable, but I get told I have to wait 48 hours? No, Versus should wait 48 hours. The NHL’s own website should have all the games live for people willing to pay the $24 a month.
DCFan on January 18, 2010 at 10:41 PM said:

Why not move the caps to all HD MASN who does not have any winter sports and can be all about the caps!!
Joe on December 27, 2009 at 3:14 AM said:

Agree w/all but especially moved to comment on #2. I’m a Caps season ticketholder and feel like just maybe for once the person delivering what we all spend our hard earned dollar on cares enough about their product to want it delivered in a manner that doesn’t short-circuit the very ripe-to-be-expanded fan base. The clowns up in Philly just don’t get that ratings only come with a willingness to be bold and invest in the quality of the content broadcast. Ted does and has, which is why the Caps are as exciting to watch as they are and why I thank God that we have an owner who cares so much about his product and customers. I pray for the day when fly-by-night outfits like CSN (which survived to wrest control of broadcast rights solely by default and collapse of all other competition) no longer have the liberty to degrade the product of the content rights-owners solely due to the effective monopoly they have in place.
theRealJR on December 26, 2009 at 12:01 AM said:

Ted, here’s an idea: Start your own network. CSN is junk, I’m sure you could do much better.
Jason B on December 25, 2009 at 4:43 PM said:

Ted,

Appreciate the words on CSN+ and also expanding HD coverage. Much, much needed for the fans. There are great storylines across games and fans can miss out when there is channel-jumping and bad production quality.

Certainly HD is more of a benefit to hockey than basketball.

Glad you said this!

-Jason
A Caps fan in Virginia
Ari on December 25, 2009 at 2:12 PM said:

Agree 100% with everything here.
Michael S. on December 25, 2009 at 1:28 PM said:

“# Get the issues between DirecTV and VERSUS channel fixed ASAP. This is an issue to our viewers and fans. It must get fixed in 2010.
# Get more HD as promised. Why isn’t every Capitals game shot and broadcast in HD?
# Fix the quality of CSN Plus. The picture shouldn’t look like 1970’s circa production value.”

Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Spot on, Ted.
Ken Blount on December 25, 2009 at 11:20 AM said:

CSN Plus is awful. We live near Richmond, so we only make it to Verizon about 8 games a season. Therefore we rely on CSN alot. When the game is on CSN Plus, depression sets in. My kids and I just guess at who has the puck because the jersey numbers and picture are so fuzzy. “Was that Alex who just scored or Erskine?” (the picture is that bad). Overall however, from a positive standpoint CSN does a good job (I grew up with the Caps on the old Home Team Sports network). One suggestion however, David Poile used to submit to interviews between periods, perhaps George McPhee could sometimes do this.
Michael on December 24, 2009 at 2:41 PM said:

Ted,

One video-related wish from a fan/STH…please have someone point out to the in-house camera folks that they’re using HD cameras and they can take a wider shot and keep it more stable rather than zooming in waaaay too tight which results in a replay that is blurry and well behind the action. It’s a little thing, but one which we would greatly appreciate.
nistl on December 24, 2009 at 12:04 PM said:

Ted, you are right on!!! I can’t believe that #2 is out of your mouth as well. My wife and I ask the same thing. I feel better already knowing that this frustration makes #2 on your list. Hockey is SO much better in HD. How else can you see how amazing that Morrison goal last night was?
Bucknell Dad on December 24, 2009 at 11:20 AM said:

Amen on the issues with Comcast Sports Net! As a Philly resident, I always appreciate those very rare cases (often when the woeful Flyers aren’t playing) when they actually broadcast Caps games in their hometown market, but it’s obvious their operations aren’t keeping up with their growth and expansions.