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Every year at this time, I settle in front of my pc for hours world class snooker, the problem is I live in Canada, so I can't watch any of the streaming feeds on the BBC and Eurosport websites, if I click on any video content it says "Cannot play media. Sorry, this media is not available in your territory."
I can't even view the recorded highlights or archives. Last year I used a proxy server to log on to the sites, but this year my proxys failed, and so I began hunting the net for sites relaying the feeds. The World Championship 2009 - Live streams! thread was extreamly helpful in finding links for the matches.
The "territory" the BBC refers to is North America, and as I understand it, many other regions as well. We're all constantly hearing talk about snooker being a dying sport, sponsership money is down, there are less ranking events, and tv viewership is down. Why then is there this great effort being made to make the game watchable to only a select few? The BBC says they only have rights to broadcast in certain areas, fine. But why aren't Rodney walker and World snooker actively getting snooker broadcast by another international provider, either on cable or on-line? There are millions of people who love to play and watch snooker in Canada, and the U.S., and World Snooker and the networks involved are making a bad bet by making the game so inaccessible to so many potential viewers. It only forces those of us who want to watch to find illegal sites which are pirating the BBC coverage. There is no legal option.
I'd love to hear TSF's thoughts and ideas for solutions to this issue.
My own suggestion is this: www.worldsnooker.com should carry live uninterrupted feeds of every table, with out commentary, dedicate intermissions to advertising to cover the expenses, and of course make the feeds available world-wide.
I can't even view the recorded highlights or archives. Last year I used a proxy server to log on to the sites, but this year my proxys failed, and so I began hunting the net for sites relaying the feeds. The World Championship 2009 - Live streams! thread was extreamly helpful in finding links for the matches.
The "territory" the BBC refers to is North America, and as I understand it, many other regions as well. We're all constantly hearing talk about snooker being a dying sport, sponsership money is down, there are less ranking events, and tv viewership is down. Why then is there this great effort being made to make the game watchable to only a select few? The BBC says they only have rights to broadcast in certain areas, fine. But why aren't Rodney walker and World snooker actively getting snooker broadcast by another international provider, either on cable or on-line? There are millions of people who love to play and watch snooker in Canada, and the U.S., and World Snooker and the networks involved are making a bad bet by making the game so inaccessible to so many potential viewers. It only forces those of us who want to watch to find illegal sites which are pirating the BBC coverage. There is no legal option.
I'd love to hear TSF's thoughts and ideas for solutions to this issue.
My own suggestion is this: www.worldsnooker.com should carry live uninterrupted feeds of every table, with out commentary, dedicate intermissions to advertising to cover the expenses, and of course make the feeds available world-wide.
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