NHL on the Tube

Nope, not Youtube or any other new media experiment, but the good ole boob tube. Outside of arbitration hearings (ok, just Sean Avery’s), the biggest news in the NHL this week is about the league possibly making up with sports broadcasting giant ESPN.

Sports Business Journal reported the two sides are talking:

The NHL and ESPN are in discussions about bringing the league’s games back to ESPN2 as soon as the 2008-09 season.

Multiple sources described the conversations as preliminary. The two started talking the week of July 16 when the NHL approached ESPN about NBC’s nine-game regular-season schedule, plus the playoffs. NBC holds the rights to air the coming season as part of a revenue-sharing agreement, and the network holds a one-year option for the 2008-09 season.

The league has been widely criticized ever since they parted ways with ESPN after the 2003-04 season. From general lack of exposure to the obscurity of their new cable partner Versus, the NHL has been the butt of jokes in the media for a few years now.

Strategy

Rumors that ESPN was interested in the NHL again surfaced back in January when Versus extended their current deal with the league one more year.

Two Canadian media outlets jumped on the idea of ESPN replacing NBC.

From The Province:

Turn out the lights. The NBC-NHL party is just about over. The U.S. TV network has one year plus an option left on its deal with the hockey league and with numbers sinking faster than the Lusitania the rats are already jumping ship.

From The Globe and Mail:

Still, if the NHL is talking to ESPN, it’s almost certain NBC has informed the league it is preparing to pull out.

Networks make programming decisions months in advance. It’s unlikely the NHL would have approached ESPN unless it knew NBC was not planning to pick up its option.

Whether or not the league is actually looking to replace NBC with ESPN is yet to be seen. It might have just been the best way to get conversation started. Generally, all major sports leagues try to have at least one national broadcast partner at all times. Only the NFL has replaced broadcast with cable, for Monday Night Football (ABC to sister ESPN), although Sunday Night Football moved from cable to broadcast at the same time (NBC replacing ESPN). Since 1995 the NHL has had both broadcast and cable contracts in the U.S.

The word replacement might not be part of any NHL plan. The ideal situation would have the NHL keep any number of games on NBC, get a game per week on ESPN (or most likely, ESPN2) and still have Versus broadcast a couple of more games per week.

No lose

Versus currently has the rights to broadcast NHL games on cable exclusively. However, Sports Business Journal includes this tidbit:

The move would mark a change at Versus, as well, which is open to giving up its cable exclusivity if it can tap into ESPN’s marketing prowess. Over the past two years, Versus executives have complained privately that ESPN ignored their network. They are hoping for a situation that mirrors the NBA, where ESPN and TNT push viewers to each network’s games.

Giving up exclusivity for publicity would be a smart move for the young network. ESPN, which has mocked the channel on occasion, would now be helping remind its audience it not only exists, but carries similar content (somewhere Alanis Morissette is smiling).

Despite the jokes directed at Versus, Comcast has done a good job getting it onto more cable systems since the NHL deal was signed, and continuously improving the hockey broadcasts as they’ve gone along. However, they were never able to sign a contract with another major sports league, and they’re far from the ESPN competitor they’d like to be. The NHL isn’t a big enough draw to help bring a steady audience in. The NHL on ESPN could not only help the league, but Versus as well.

Send him ramen noodles

I’m never happy to hear about someone losing their job, but I got a chuckle out of Ray Ferraro’s quote in The Province article from above:

In response, the network has now cancelled its studio show and has reduced three games on Saturday to just one on Sunday.

Gone are Brett Hull, Bill Clement and Ray Ferraro.

“Of course I was disappointed,” says Ferraro. “Three minutes into the call and you know you’ve got to start earning a living some place else.”

David Pratt of The Province thankfully points out Ferraro still has a year left on his Sportsnet contract and CBC seems to be interested. I’ll throw in the little nugget that he also made millions playing the game. No one should be jobless if they’re willing to work, but it just reminded me of Latrell Sprewell wanting to “feed his family” (a little, he’s still working, don’t get too uptight).

Links found through the KK empire

NHL & ESPN Talking - with a good number of comments
NBC Fading
Signs Point To NBC Not Picking Up Broadcast Option

1997 rules

From hockeyfights.com member IhateLindros: