I spend inordinate amounts of time watching hockey on television. I can't help it. I love the game.

In fact, we spend about 150 bucks a year to buy the NHL satellite feeds, beaming just about every game all season into our receivers. In the US, the dominant broadcast provider is Fox Sports Net, a network created by News Corp (the parent company of Fox, owned by Rupert Murdoch) through the purchase of small independent tv channels in larger markets. Regional cable access will give me Fox Sports Bay Area, for instance. Through FSBA I was able to watch the San Jose Sharks' remarkable season two years ago, that turned me into a Sharks fan. It also made me a fan of the FSBA hockey broadcasts.

Through the auspices of Fox Sports Pittsburgh I am now also able to follow my beloved Penguins as they suffer this miserable season, having traded away all the top talents they couldn't afford (they've been emptying their team of talented players since 1997; it took 5 years for them to finally bottom out last year - that's how many incredible players they had. But I digress).

I've been noticing something about Fox Sports for two years now, but only recently has it finally bothered me enough to provoke comment.

The marketing ploy of Fox Sports Net is that the coverage is regional - the network is there to serve local fans, so they can see their local teams, hear about other local sports action, etc. When I first started watching the Sharks I began to see ads for Sharks coverage on FSBA. One in particular I enjoyed showed the alleged effects of watching the Sharks on TV. In the first scene, a caption says "after 3 Sharks games;" while watching the Sharks on the tube (you can hear Randy Hahn and Drew Remenda, the Sharks broadcasters, calling a game) a guy ironing his shirt accidentally leans his forearm against the iron, but has no pain reaction. In the next scene, a caption reads "after 30 Sharks games" and the same guy, taking out the trash, has the lid of the dumpster slam on top of his head, with, again, no pain reaction. Then a still later shot with a still more violent accident, with still no pain reaction. Cute, huh? I liked it.

Until I saw the same ads for Fox Sports Pittsburgh, with Mike Lange and Eddie Olczyk (the Pens broadcasters until this year) in the background, and Fox Sports South Florida with the Panthers' broadcasters, and Fox Sports Denver with the Avalanche broadcasters, etc. etc. etc.

This year they've gotten more sophisticated. Using not terribly high tech post-production techniques, they've started inserting team logos into ads. The first series of these I saw was a little drama about conjoined twins sharing a fingertip (it's hilarious already, isn't it?). The twins grow to tweenage, happy and healthy, learning to ride bicycles, the whole time with their fingertips stuck together as one. The problem arose when one of the conjoined twins became a die-hard fan of (the first time I saw it) the Penguins, while the other one wasn't enthused. In one sequence, the little Siamese fan danced around (presmuably in ecstatic joy about the team) with a Penguins logo on his sweatshirt, while the little Siamese non-fan looked away in horror.

I've now seen that ad with the Sharks logo, the Dallas Stars' logo, and countless others. It's a cheap trick. The new series shows a rabid fan shaving his head and revealing a full-color tattoo of the team logo on his scalp.

It's tempting to dismiss these, saying "oh, so this is what Fox thinks being regional means." But I think the lesson is a bit more disturbing. Fox isn't counting on these ads fooling anyone into buying their cheap marketing ploy. After all, they profit from satellite subscribers like me buying feeds that reveal this cheap marketing ploy. Regionalism is nothing but post-production, nothing but replacing one logo for another on a t-shirt. A Penguins fan, according to Fox Sports, is a consumer of the brand Penguins (TM), who associates with this brand image, placed on any available surface. The teams are all the same, the broadcasters are all the same, the regions are all the same, but the brands - ah, the brands! Vive la difference!