Wiring Wimbledon

from the must-get-money-somehow dept

It seems that sporting events are quickly becoming the way for various media and technology companies to test new ways to get people to pay up. While there were any number of "instant alert" systems being talked about for the World Cup, now the technologists are spending all their time getting ready to make sure anyone (with some money to spare) doesn't miss a moment of Wimbledon tennis action. It makes sense, since sports fans are often in desperate need of the latest breaking news. However, execution is still key. I'm currently annoyed with Major League Baseball - who I've paid to be able to listen to every game broadcast over the web. Last week, they started the ridiculous practice of making me opt-out of getting spam every single time I go to listen to a game. Each time you go listen to a game, you have to sign back in, and each time you have to uncheck the "spam me" box. I wrote in to complain that if I didn't want spam the first time they should remember that - and MLB.com wrote back to say "we're sorry you're having trouble listening to Game Day Audio". So, not only are they incompetent at intelligent marketing, they're incompetent at customer service too. If the various online sports services keep this up, they're not going to make many fans happy.

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