Actually, that wasn't what I was referring to, although I'm sure that's an issue. I'm referring to this:
Being 100% stream presents a challenge for watching the team in public places on televisions, like restaurants and bars. Most have DirecTV, and aren't equipped to put on internet streams. In Dallas, I'm sure all the bars close to American Airlines Center will figure something out. But what about a sports bar 30 miles from the arena? 50 miles from the arena? Any sports bar in these radii would have been showing Stars games previously, but now, who knows if will make efforts to show an exclusively internet streamed game. Are the Stars going to make attempts to get bars/restaurants to accommodate this, and if so, again, what's the radius away from the AAC that they will?
I think these are important considerations for the Sharks, and what I mean in terms of watching how this goes. I want to see how much Stars fans complain about this, whether they are: 1.) patrons at a bar/restaurant that don't figure out a way to show the game or even 2.) people who are not tech-savvy frustrated that the game is not on cable/sat/OTA. I think this #2 is likely severely underestimated by the Stars going into this season. Many of us look at this as freedom from cable/sat/OTA/other streaming services, but for others who have such services and aren't going to get rid of them, this may seem more difficult and frustrating that they simply can't turn in a cable/sat/OTA channel to watch the game. Does putting the Stars 100% on a streaming service mean that less casuals watch, because now it's not something they casually find while flipping through channels, but something they have to go out of their way to find and watch via streaming? Things like that.
