I just received this press release from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
John Shannon, vice-president of programming and executive producer of Leafs TV and Raptors/NBA TV, announced Thursday that Leafs TV will exclusively broadcast 12 Maple Leafs games on the club-owned digital channel during the 2004-05 regular season.
Leafs TV is a digital station that you must pay an additional monthly fee to receive. Despite the fact I'm a huge Leafs fan, I've never been interested in Leafs TV because it's just biased commentary by people on the Maple Leafs payroll. Now, they'll be exclusively broadcasting 12 regular season games meaning it will be impossible for a diehard like me to catch every game next season without subscribing.
I suspect the 12 games will be west coast games that begin at 22:00 EST. There's no way I'm subscribing for that, I'll simply listen to the blue and white on the radio. My fear is that this is only the beginning. What's next? 20 games? 30 games? All games?
And so it begins...
