Most of these ads are traditional media, particularly TV. And for live sport, you often have to choose between TV with its ads, or paying money directly to Murdoch.
I stopped watching sport years ago. I used to watch the footy every weekend. Summer tv was cricket. I rang a tv station once as a kid infuriated because I had been watching golf all day and they cut away just as the competition was being decided. Now all sport is tainted by gambling, overpaid and obnoxious personalities, and too much commercialism. I don’t know who plays for the teams I used to follow. I don’t care anymore.
All my browsers are ad-blocked. I sometimes pay subscriptions to remove ads. I was time shifting for a few years to ad skip commercial tv but there was better content in higher quality on bittorrent, then streaming and now I don’t bother plugging an aerial into tvs or tuning the channels.
Perhaps one day the ad market will collapse and sport will move back to the public broadcasters where it was before people worked out how to ruin it with money. Until then I can live without it.
Sports fans could learn something from gamers: there is such a thing as “patient gaming” when you don’t buy a game as soon as possible but wait until all bugs are cleaned out, DLCs are released, etc. Wait a year and you will get the game you want for significantly lower price, and the game itself will be polished as it should be. In the case of sports, it wouldn’t take a year, more likely a few days until you will be able to get a record without ads, with the best commentary and points of view. The situation with prices and ads won’t change until you force it to change “with wallet”.
I’m not sure the comparison works, because video games are a thing you play for yourself. They’re a published medium meant to be consumed as a work of art in your own time. Sports are live events.
Just gather your friends, beer, whatever, and watch a match 2 days later. I’m sure you won’t notice any difference (except for the absence of ads, of course) :)
And the fact that…you already know the result. And it’s basically impossible to avoid, because results of big sporting matches are headline news, topics of workplace smalltalk, and might have already been fed to you by your tipping or fantasy competition.
Use adblockers. At least the internet would be clean from this ad-shit.
Most of these ads are traditional media, particularly TV. And for live sport, you often have to choose between TV with its ads, or paying money directly to Murdoch.
I stopped watching sport years ago. I used to watch the footy every weekend. Summer tv was cricket. I rang a tv station once as a kid infuriated because I had been watching golf all day and they cut away just as the competition was being decided. Now all sport is tainted by gambling, overpaid and obnoxious personalities, and too much commercialism. I don’t know who plays for the teams I used to follow. I don’t care anymore.
All my browsers are ad-blocked. I sometimes pay subscriptions to remove ads. I was time shifting for a few years to ad skip commercial tv but there was better content in higher quality on bittorrent, then streaming and now I don’t bother plugging an aerial into tvs or tuning the channels.
Perhaps one day the ad market will collapse and sport will move back to the public broadcasters where it was before people worked out how to ruin it with money. Until then I can live without it.
Sports fans could learn something from gamers: there is such a thing as “patient gaming” when you don’t buy a game as soon as possible but wait until all bugs are cleaned out, DLCs are released, etc. Wait a year and you will get the game you want for significantly lower price, and the game itself will be polished as it should be. In the case of sports, it wouldn’t take a year, more likely a few days until you will be able to get a record without ads, with the best commentary and points of view. The situation with prices and ads won’t change until you force it to change “with wallet”.
I’m not sure the comparison works, because video games are a thing you play for yourself. They’re a published medium meant to be consumed as a work of art in your own time. Sports are live events.
Just gather your friends, beer, whatever, and watch a match 2 days later. I’m sure you won’t notice any difference (except for the absence of ads, of course) :)
And the fact that…you already know the result. And it’s basically impossible to avoid, because results of big sporting matches are headline news, topics of workplace smalltalk, and might have already been fed to you by your tipping or fantasy competition.
Well, yeah. Spoilers are unavoidable in sports…
Not if you’re watching live…