Media: Watch it on HD

TORONTO, ONTARIO - As long as twenty-five years ago, there was an interesting phenomenon amongst unlimited hydroplane racing fans. Enthusiasts of the sport that would attend every race that they could over the course of the year would not attend race day in Seattle, Washington. Why? It wasn't the weather or ticket prices. The Seattle race was always televised, and the coverage on the local station was often so good, and the views from the television camera so much better than what could be seen from the shore, that the fans thought the experience was more engaging at home on television than along Lake Washington.

In twenty-five years, a lot has improved in television technology. Large-screen televisions are far more commonplace for average consumers. Analog television has been replaced with digital television that makes the picture even more clear and real to the viewer. Watching television feels even more like actually being somewhere than it ever has before, and now the same phenomenon that was occurring long ago with unlimited hydroplane racing is happening to other sports.

The Toronto Blue Jays, the only major-league baseball team in Canada, is now receiving record television ratings. Despite being on a cable channel, the games are often viewed by more than 500,000 people (as cited in the Toronto Star). Meanwhile, the in-person attendance at the Rogers Centre is about as low as it has ever been. According to TSN, opening night aside, the team has averaged just 14,853 fans in its first 25 home games. Attendance has exceeded 20,000 only twice, in a stadium that holds nearly 50,000.

Clearly, the team doesn't have a popularity problem. Besides the record television ratings, their on-the-field record has exceeded expectations, competitive in the American League East and the wild card race. It just seems that the fans prefer their in-home television experience to the experience in the Rogers Centre.

Perhaps this isn't so surprising. Traffic and parking are huge problems in Toronto and around the Rogers Centre in particular. The amenities of the Rogers Centre pale in comparison with more modern stadiums from the new Camden Yards in Baltimore to Safeco Field in Seattle. Ticket prices effectively went up this year with the end of some package deals and most promotions.

Yet, the Blue Jays might really be canaries on this issue. As home entertainment technology improves (think live baseball in 3D), this phenomenon isn't going to be limited to Toronto. For that matter, it will not be limited to baseball. It is not inconceivable that within a decade, for most fans, the experience at home will be better than the experience in person. The whole business model for sports may need to be re-evaluated--and the teams and sports that anticipate this and create a new sustainable model will be the ones that will still be around in a generation.

Margin Notes: Soot, Messing with Joe, Digital TV

Canadian Pacific trains #240 and #159 met above the Humber River in Toronto, Ontario on 25-February-2009

TORONTO, ONTARIO - Most weeks, it seems I complain about the weather each Sunday, but the above picture shows why the winter is so enjoyable in Canada--the white covering adds quite a bit to a picture of a meet between two Canadian Pacific trains at the Humber River in this neighborhood. It won't look nearly as attractive once the snow disappears until the spring growth starts to occur.

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Spring may start sooner according to some researchers. Recent research by NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies appears to be backing up claims first publicized in 2003 that soot accelerates global warming. By making the snow less white, the soot causes the ground to reflect less energy and absorb more, thus accelerating global warming by what the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics recently reported may amount to snow packs in the mountains of the western United States melting a full month earlier than it would otherwise!

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While a spring melt one month earlier than usual might sound like a good idea right now, many of us are far more interested in the economy improving one month earlier than it otherwise would. In a major speech last week, US President Barack Obama announced that Vice President Joe Biden will be placed in charge of making certain that stimulus spending would occur as intended, "because nobody messes with Joe." I thought Joe Croce sang to us in 1972 that You Don't Mess Around With Jim, not Joe.

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I had occasion to listen to news about Obama and the rest of the world on the analog television channel signal of CBC Television (VHF channel #5 in the Toronto area) this week, and the thought occurred to me that there are already places in the US where listening to analog television is no longer possible. Analog television will disappear everywhere in the United States on 12-June-2009. Our time will come in Canada, though. The CRTC has currently scheduled the end of analog television to be 31-August-2011 here. Maybe by then I'll have a smart phone that will be able to pick up the live Internet feed of CBC Newsworld.

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This blog made available new material on the Internet every day during the month of February (radio picks on Saturday and photos on Sunday don't count toward that feat, so the post total is padded to 36 instead of 28). Now that I've proven I can do that, expect a few random days to be missed in the coming weeks as I worry more about quality than quantity.