People suggested doing this a while back after the NDSU/UND basketball game, and I finally got around to doing it. Thought I would share with the group in case it inspired anyone else to speak up. I emailed this letter to Media relations this afternoon.
Dear Mr Schwartz, Mr. Perreault, and Mr. Offerman,
When I graduated and moved back to the cities, we used to have no way of hearing about Bison sports scores until the next day and hopefully they would print something in the paper. Then as time went by we were able to listen to games on the radio. Now we can watch the video streams. Every time my wife and I watch Bison games we are always reminded of the old days and how lucky we are to be watching the Bison in the comforts of our own home. Having said that, there is room for improvement.
I have had the GoBison.com “All Access” through NeuLion for 2-3 years now. We watch a lot of basketball and football. We watch some softball, and plan on starting to watch wrestling. There have been numerous occasions where the service does not work properly: Video Freezing, pixilations, black screens, no audio etc. There have been numerous basketball games where we missed parts of the first half. There was even one football game where the video started and instead of Bison football…it showed a Sioux hockey show…then switched eventually to the football game. I have contacted NeuLion customer service MANY times. I have emailed them. I have called. Sometimes they have extended our membership a month for the inconvenience. The last few times, they just haven’t cared. They have given me the email runaround. Many times they tried to tell me it’s my own computer or internet that is causing the problem, which is untrue. A few months back after the NDSU/UND basketball game at the Fargodome, I got a hold of a customer service rep and his response was…”What do you want?" and "What do you want me to do about it?”
As I said earlier, I really appreciate being able to keep up with Bison athletics. But it gets frustrating when you are paying for a service, and nobody seems to care that it’s not working and the only other option is to not have the service and give up on watching the bison, which obviously isn’t an option. So either I keep watching in frustration, or try to do something about it. That’s the purpose of this email.
Its time for a change. I bet there is a lot of money out there to be made for the university if you can figure out a way to do this yourselves instead of relying on outside parties. In this age of Bison Division I athletics, the product that is going out is just not acceptable any more. We have grown up. It's time for the product to grow with the rest of the University. Regardless I wanted you to be aware of the situation in case you weren’t. Thanks for listening.
Go Bison!