(from William Houston
Globe & Mail Sports
May 16)

Early exit

When the Toronto Blue Jays-Tampa Bay Devil Rays game on Sunday afternoon wrapped up 30 minutes short of the three hours allotted to the telecast, Rogers Sportsnet went to the Baltimore Orioles-Boston Red Sox game already in progress.

Sportsnet called it bonus baseball coverage, but it was actually filler, because at 4 p.m. EDT, Sportsnet dropped the game, with the Orioles leading 3-0, to air a regularly scheduled poker show, which was taped.

As it turned out, the Red Sox mounted a comeback in the ninth inning to defeat the Orioles 6-5. Of course, Sportsnet's viewers didn't see it.

The point is, Sportsnet should not have left the Orioles-Red Sox game, regardless of the score. When you begin airing a live event, you stay with it until the conclusion. If it was critical to get the taped poker telecast on the air, Sportsnet should have picked it up after the game and then let it run into Sportsnet Connected.


On Sportsnet Pacific at 4 Eastern, they switched to the scheduled Yankees @ Mariners game, so the situation was far less egregious.

That would require caring about the viewer...the least important part of Sportsnet. This is proof.

Looks to me like Ted Rogers went "all-in" and lost AGAIN IMHO!!!