As part of her… uhh… 21st birthday, I gave Helaine a subscription to Major League Baseball’s video service. She watches the Phillies and I think the service is a good deal.
Often, I go to the site MLB maintains for the Phillies and that’s where my complaint begins. The site loads and then a few seconds later, while you’re engaged in what you’re doing, a video commercial starts playing – LOUDLY.
I work in commercial TV. I understand commercials. But MLB offers no functionality to quiet this beast on its page. In fact, once the commercial starts playing, you’re stuck closing your web browser or suffering.
Again, I work in commercial TV. I understand the utility of commercials.
Here’s the problem. I will check the Phillies site while my wife is sleeping… or from the studio at work. If they’re going to play their commercial LOUDLY and give me no way to stop it, I’m going to stop coming.
MLB will tell you, there’s the ability to click on the player before the video starts, which stops the whole process – and that’s true. But, since the commercial loads after the rest of the page, that countdown to LOUD sneaks in while you’re looking elsewhere. And, again, there’s no way to stop it or quiet it once it begins.
A friend at work says the Minnesota Twins site does the same thing.
This is not a page from “How To Win Friends and Influence People.”