Advertising has never been more invasive. You can barely speak a word about a company or search for a product online without your phone, laptop, or any other “smart” product immediately targeting you with an ad.
Every sporting event we watch on TV these days is also riddled with ads. Major League Baseball games have digital ads on the mounds and behind the plate. WWE premium live events, which used to have no ads back when they were pay-per-views, have more ads than actual wrestling. And now, ESPN’s NHL Stanley Cup Playoff broadcasts are putting digital ads right on fans’ heads.
That last one wasn’t supposed to happen (we think), but it did during the third period of Monday’s second-round NHL playoff game between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Carolina Hurricanes on ESPN.
Technically, the digital ad didn’t actually appear on the fan’s head; it just showed through his head like some sort of demented magic trick. The ad in question was supposed to appear on the boards surrounding the rink, but thanks to modern technology, viewers were treated to a brief but very bizarre moment during the broadcast.
Digital ads on NHL broadcasts have been causing issues for years
As Awful Announcing pointed out, hockey began experimenting with these digital ads a few years ago. Since then, there have been numerous issues with the technology during games.
“I remember the first month this tech was rolled out the NHL said the kinks would be worked out ‘soon,'” one NHL fan wrote on Monday. “The truth: we’ve just gotten used to putting up with digital boards ads.”
In 2023, after NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman boldly claimed the league had conducted polls that showed the majority of people actually prefer the new ads, they have actually proven to be a cause of concern for people with what is known as “photosensitive epilepsy.”