Comment by Marsymars

Recently I watch the Scotties Tournament of Hearts[1].

I paid for a monthly subscription to the Canadian streaming provider (TSN), since I live in Canada.

For whatever reason, there was no international streaming provider. (It has been on ESPN in previous years.)

The ads on the TSN stream were horrific. They put a full 25% of the active play of every game (the first thrower in every end) in a muted PIP box so they could play more full-screen ads.

TSN decided to offer a stream of the playoff games to non-Canadian viewers who had no way of watching, and since pay-for TSN is geoblocked to Canada, they made that stream free, and geoblocked it to not play in Canada.

The international stream was also free of commercial breaks. Instead of commercials it just showed miscellaneous cameras between ends, and showed the entire ends without putting a quarter of them in a PIP box.

So obviously, my experience was much better by streaming the international stream rather than the local stream that I paid for.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotties_Tournament_of_Hearts