I hate and love the NBA at times, mostly love comes to mind being that it is the best sport and league in the world. However, over the years my anguish with being a super fan and living in Canada has almost driven me mad. You see when it comes to television and Internet rights for NBA broadcasting in Canada the governing body is a total and separated entity from what the rest of the NBA has, it is called NBA Canada. In the world of David Stern and the league office, when dealing with Canada and such they decided to create a separate authority on what was to take place in Canada (ie. the Raptors, merchandise, TV/Internet stuff, etc... the whole works), so they called it NBA Canada. In theory they had to go this route due to differing Canadian laws and such. Hence forth the idea as a whole is great for Canadians to a point, what the whole thing is about is to promote the game abroad in Canada, while maintaining a stance of Canadian basketball. When this new governing body arrived in 1995, TSN, Raptors TV, The Score and the CBC all jumped on board asking for a piece of the pie. Well in the process NBA Canada decided to give its power and rights to theses entities so they all could harness and develop the Raptors and Canadian basketball together. The whole we want everyone involved came to fruition within NBA Canada. Therefore, each entity gains a certain number of Raptors and NBA games thus enabling them each to having a say as to what is viewed up here in Canada. As an example TSN will get say 25 Raptors games and say 30 other NBA games, which in turn shows the rest of Canada that hey "we at TSN care about the NBA and The Raptors, we have this many games and such". Now with that, lets say you are like me and you like the Raptors but your favorite team lies in Los Angeles. So when the season starts you are excited and want to watch every Laker game, however, alas you come to see that TSN, the Score, CBC and Raptors TV are only broadcasting 18 Laker games all season. Well that sucks! So you see, as a fan of the Lakers up here in Canada my rights at viewing all the Lakers games are put into the hands of these TV Stations. How is that fair? What if you liked Memphis, you'd be fucked, you might get one game if you were lucky. So then how do you follow your team/player? How do you stay involved? The most likely scenario is that you wouldn't, you'd lose hope and give up, is this what the NBA wants, its fans giving up? I don't think so. So then why not offer a package that can be purchased so where you can watch all the games and pick which ones you want to watch? Oh but wait, IT FUCKING DOES EXIST, IT HAS FOR OVER 10 YEARS NOW!!!
Now for the longest time, at least 10 years running, the NBA has offered to it fans the choice of subscribing to NBA League Pass, a great package at a reasonable price that gives fans the ultimate prize, full access to every game of every team. Much like the NFL's, NHL's and MlB's packages, League Pass is a great option for fans who want to watch more than what they can get regionally from their local cable subscriber. Smart huh? Now since this little package has been available to US citizens for over 10 years, you would think that NBA Canada would jump in and offer this prize for its fans and viewers. You would think???????????
Instead NBA Canada chose not to offer League Pass in Canada because they were afraid of damaging their alliances with the aforementioned group above. Their view was and still is "give them all the Raptors games, a few other games and that should be good enough". Really? Is that fair, I mean what about all the money they could make, I mean how hard is it to offer League Pass?, isn't it in their best interest as a corporation? Think about it, for 10 years now I've known about League Pass but have yet to have it offered to me, for 10 YEARS!!!
Now fortunately for fans in Ontario, this season will mark the first time EVER that league Pass will be offered in Canada, thru Rogers Cable. FUCK FINALLY!! Great their finally listening, but then here's another problem, what about the rest of us? Why only Ontario? Why not all of Canada? And why no Broadband? You see, this year also marks the first in which League Pass Broadband is offered as a stand alone product, meaning that if you have access to a computer and the Internet, you can subscribe to League Pass Broadband. You can now access it in Australia, Israel, Germany, France, England, but NOT IN FUCKING CANADA, WE HAVE A TEAM IN THE LEAGUE FOR FUCKS SAKES, HOW CAN THESE FAR AWAY COUNTRIES HAVE MORE ACCESS THEN WE DO!!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!! UHHH THIS IS SO INFURIATING!!!! I HATE NBA CANADA, YOU COWARDLY STUPID FUCKERS!!!!
Okay so I lost my cool there for a moment but you should be able to see my point, this is so stupid. How can Israel have more access to the NBA than me, a Canadian? You know what I love Canada, but it's times like these that I wish I was an Israeli, at least then I could watch Kobe play.
Whatever, I'm out
Fuck!
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