How long does the NHL and/or its fans have to suffer through the current TV deal? Not only are most playoff games and some of the Stanley Cup on Versus, the All Star Game was on that Digital cable channel as well. If this continues much longer the NHL is going to become more and more irrelevant.
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NHL TV Contract question
- Thread starter BDBopper
- Start date
It was a two year deal so this is the end of it. However, I would expect the NHL to resign with them for money. NBC is apparently happy with its deal, it would be nice if the NHL could extend that to a USA weeknight game or something. They wouldn't make much money off of it, but at least the majority of hockey fans to actually watch.
With the exception of the NFL, the other sports are way down compared to years ago. MLB and NBA games are similarly losing viewers. NHL had much smaller ratings to begin with...
NHL has a couple of problems the other sports don't have...
(1) Before the 1990s, the sport was practically non-existent in the southern half of the country. I live in Dallas...the Stars moved here in 1993. When they moved here, the sports was only known to transplants from the north; I never saw a game before they came here. There were 5 rinks in the area. The Stars have been farily successful in trying to setup hockey in Texas...there are thousands of kids in various hockey leagues now (compared to near 0 before), 70 high school hockey teams now (0 before), etc. The Stars have been able to fill up the arena, but it still is going to take a while to catch up to the other sports. Even then, it will always be tough. Ponds don't freeze in the south during the winter...you can have a pick-up football, baseball, or basketball game with neighborhood kids pretty much anytime; you can't do that with hockey.
(2) The NHL has no team in about 1/3rd of the top 30 largest TV US markets (Houston, Seattle, Portland, Orlando, San Diego, etc.). That hurts...
(3) The sport is pretty white. The NHL needs a better program to reach out to black and Hispanic audiences. I don't believe any NHL team has a Spanish-language radio partner. In Dallas, the Rangers (MLB), Mavs (NBA), and Cowboys have Spanish-language outlets for their games; the Stars don't. Kind of shocking the LA, Miami, and Phoenix teams don't either. Across the country, they're pretty much ignoring 1/4th of the US TV population.
(4) The NHL management are their own worse enemy...Pittsburgh played at Dallas last week. It will be several years before they return under the dumb scheduling.
(5) Few games in HDTV...if ever there was a sport made for HDTV, this is it. I know folks who can't follow it on regular analog broadcasts since the game moves so fast; they say it is a completely different experience the few times a HDTV broadcast is available. The NHL needs to get on its local broadcast affiliates and get them to make all the games available in hi-def.
There are probably local quirks too...in Dallas, the Stars are in a conference where every other team -- LA, Anaheim, San Jose, Phoenix -- is 2 time zones away (well, Phoenix is sometimes -1 hour, sometimes -2 due to daylight savings time). The upcoming games this week at San Jose will mean a local start time of 9:30PM. Hard to build an audience that way (worse, over the air games are on KDFI --- those crappy MyNetworkTV novelas leading into them some nights have hashmarks for ratings -- 0.0).
I think MLB, NBA, and NHL ratings are also declining because local teams are taking the money to go to cable outlets and dropping local over the air games. In some markets, there are no over-the-air affiliates for some of the local teams. For the NHL, some teams have 90% or greater of their games only on cable channels (regional FSN outlet, etc.). In doing so, you've just written off 20% of potential viewers on average.
NHL has a couple of problems the other sports don't have...
(1) Before the 1990s, the sport was practically non-existent in the southern half of the country. I live in Dallas...the Stars moved here in 1993. When they moved here, the sports was only known to transplants from the north; I never saw a game before they came here. There were 5 rinks in the area. The Stars have been farily successful in trying to setup hockey in Texas...there are thousands of kids in various hockey leagues now (compared to near 0 before), 70 high school hockey teams now (0 before), etc. The Stars have been able to fill up the arena, but it still is going to take a while to catch up to the other sports. Even then, it will always be tough. Ponds don't freeze in the south during the winter...you can have a pick-up football, baseball, or basketball game with neighborhood kids pretty much anytime; you can't do that with hockey.
(2) The NHL has no team in about 1/3rd of the top 30 largest TV US markets (Houston, Seattle, Portland, Orlando, San Diego, etc.). That hurts...
(3) The sport is pretty white. The NHL needs a better program to reach out to black and Hispanic audiences. I don't believe any NHL team has a Spanish-language radio partner. In Dallas, the Rangers (MLB), Mavs (NBA), and Cowboys have Spanish-language outlets for their games; the Stars don't. Kind of shocking the LA, Miami, and Phoenix teams don't either. Across the country, they're pretty much ignoring 1/4th of the US TV population.
(4) The NHL management are their own worse enemy...Pittsburgh played at Dallas last week. It will be several years before they return under the dumb scheduling.
(5) Few games in HDTV...if ever there was a sport made for HDTV, this is it. I know folks who can't follow it on regular analog broadcasts since the game moves so fast; they say it is a completely different experience the few times a HDTV broadcast is available. The NHL needs to get on its local broadcast affiliates and get them to make all the games available in hi-def.
There are probably local quirks too...in Dallas, the Stars are in a conference where every other team -- LA, Anaheim, San Jose, Phoenix -- is 2 time zones away (well, Phoenix is sometimes -1 hour, sometimes -2 due to daylight savings time). The upcoming games this week at San Jose will mean a local start time of 9:30PM. Hard to build an audience that way (worse, over the air games are on KDFI --- those crappy MyNetworkTV novelas leading into them some nights have hashmarks for ratings -- 0.0).
I think MLB, NBA, and NHL ratings are also declining because local teams are taking the money to go to cable outlets and dropping local over the air games. In some markets, there are no over-the-air affiliates for some of the local teams. For the NHL, some teams have 90% or greater of their games only on cable channels (regional FSN outlet, etc.). In doing so, you've just written off 20% of potential viewers on average.
Brian Donegan said:
The NHL shot itself in the foot as regards ESPN. In the 90's the league was one of ESPN's crown jewels, ESPN2 was essentially created to run multiple NHL regular season games during the week in addition to the weekly "National Hockey Night" broadcasts on the mothership. Back in those days during the playoffs ESPN and ESPN2 would often air three hockey games a night, and if time permitted would sometimes even pick up bonus coverage of other games from Canadian networks.
Then ESPN and ABC got NBA rights and cut their hockey coverage back a bit, this also coincided with the surge of talk shows like "Pardon The Interruption" in the ESPN networks' lineup. In addition the NHL itself had become a dull show thanks to over-expansion (among other factors) producing dull, defensive, soccer-style games much of the time. By 2004 interest had declined to a point where ESPN decided to air a regular season baseball game on one channel and a mock trial of the New York Yankees on the other on a night when the Philadelphia Flyers and New Jersey Devils were playing in a playoff game.
Then the league endured a lockout for one season after its contract with ESPN had expired. ESPN put other shows, mostly poker, on in its place and found it could get much better ratings for far less money than it spent on the NHL. It offered the NHL peanuts for very limited exposure when the sport returned from its hiatus, and the league decided to go with OLN/Versus on cable and NBC for limited, scattershot network broadcasts instead. This accomplished nothing but annoying fans and driving its ratings to new lows.
I've been a long-suffering Chicago Blackhawks fan all my life, but NHL regular-season hockey is so boring these days that I am not going to pay for digital just to get Versus, especially since CBC and its vastly superior Hockey Night In Canada coverage are carried on basic cable where I live, in addition to the evil Red Wings on FSN Detroit.
To say the NHL shot itself in the foot is a load of crap. I saw the Sports Reporters this morning too and it didn't sound like he was begging for ESPN to air the NHL again, it sounded like John Saunders was blaming Betman for the poor coverage and media attention. Even in the 2nd season back all the NHL gets on Sportscenter the same 3 minute recap that ESPN decided to give the XFL, normally near the end of the show. Except Thursday (when threres only about 3 NBA games) where Barry Melrose gets to get a minute of face time to show his 3 favorite goals of the night. ESPN would much rather focus on the NFL, NBA, MLB, NCAA, and Nascar. Yes, even auto racing now has their own daily show on ESPN and still jack for the NHL. The NHL has done nothing but put out a great product since coming back and every ESPN show has done nothing but put it down. I turned from an episode from Around The Horn because the two people in the showdown agreed that the NHL All Star Game is a joke because of the high scoring and lack of defense yet defended the NBA All Star game when said game has the same problem. Bottom line, if you're not on ESPN, ESPN could care less about your sport.
Versus seems to have pretty good coverage in Indiana. I can only think of two cable companies that don't carry it on the extended basic package, and both are small companies.
I agree with this:
I agree with this:
I work for an affiliate of a Big 10 team's radio network, and the call-in postgame shows always have callers along this line: "waahh, we don't get to see the games on TV anymore because the Big 10 is launching its own cable channel". (STUPID)txchipk said:
KTU_Fan said:
ESPN would rather focus on those five sports because MANY more people, especially once you get outside the Northeast and Upper Midwest, care about them than the NHL. Same reason they don't spend lots of time on Major League Soccer, which IS aired on their networks.
Which is very sad because as recently as about 1994, the NHL and NASCAR were about equal popularity-wise on a national level. One sport was marketed brilliantly in the following years and the other was driven into the ground through Bettman's foolish policies and the team owners' greed and shortsightedness.
K
KML0224
Guest
Strange that the New York Rangers vs Boston Bruins air there tonight. NESN (New England Sport Network) was airing the AHL All-Star Game from Rogers SportsNet of Canada. As for the Rangers, usually MSG Network is usually let through here. I didn't see it tonight? Does Vs have exclusivity on Monday nights?
JeeperOne
Banned
Hi everyone:
And the irony is the NHL is more popular than the AFL is. Go figure....
Cheers
Pat
ESPN would rather deal with the AFL before they'd even consider re-signing with the NHL again (Yes ESPN has a deal with the Arena Football League, beginning with this season. I was just as surprised as I'm sure you are to hear this news).Brian Donegan said:
And the irony is the NHL is more popular than the AFL is. Go figure....
Cheers
Pat
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