Monday Rant: Capitalism is Killing Sports Media

Michael Francis
6 min readMay 22, 2023
(Image Credit: Tim Gouw /Unsplash)

First, a check up to come out of the gate: a criticism of an economic system or some result from it does not in itself mean I’m calling into question the whole system. Criticism can make things better as easily as it can call for alternatives. If you wanted a system to die, perhaps the best thing you could do is to deny and dismiss any criticism; ignore or deny the leak on a ship long enough, and there’s no ship left to argue about.

With few exceptions, our existence in an economic system that demands maximum profit has turned sports media into a cumbersome and frustrating experience.

Too Many Apps

I’m an NHL fan, and will speak to that experience here. I’m confident the experience remains nearly identical no matter which of the major 4 American sports leagues you’re talking about.

Screens and screens of apps. (Image Credit: Rami Al-zayat/Unsplash)

These playoffs, I had to flip between more than four different apps. The NHL app no longer has any streaming rights for its own league, so while good for news, scores, it actually doesn’t serve much purpose to watch hockey. Which is absurd in itself, isn’t it? More on that later.

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