OLN is Now in More than 70 Million Homes

[Ban Hammered]

I thought they would be able to market Phil Kessel until he opened his mouth and I heard his voice.

 

[Evil Genius]

Not to mention the conferences don't play each other nearly as often. Viewers in the west hardly ever get to see Kovalchuk, Jokinen, Crosby, Ovechkin, Staal, Jagr and so on. And it goes the other way. At least Florida and Atlanta wouldn't be teams I've seen a million times already.

As for the network, I guess they'd did OK considering the limited number of homes they reached last year. Hockey will never be able to challenge football in the U.S. but there's no reason they can't be the best of the "niche" sports. Here's an idea for Versus: get the UFC as soon as possible. That's the fastest growing sport in terms of fan interest in North America.

Reason's the NHL failed on ESPN: the game became torture to watch, star players didn't exist because of the defensive style and systems, ESPN employed mind-numbing analysts like Melrose (the last mullet on TV) and the NHL couldn't make Sportscenter to save their lives.

Whichever network/cable channel has the NHL needs to Ovechkin, Crosby, Staal, Spezza, Kovalchuk, Heatley and Malkin the crap out of viewers. I see better highlight reels on YouTube than hockey producers themselves deliver.

Pretty much a dead on assessment on all accounts IMHO.

 

[Jazz]

Cool.

Now what about getting in more hotels and such so travellers can 'stumble' upon a game?

 

[Randall Graves*]

OLN should work on picking some sort of college basketball deal, ESPN dominates the big east/acc but the pac 10 is extremely neglected by the networks...adding the pac 10 and mid majors wouldnt be too bad.

 

[Hunter Gathers]

OLN should work on picking some sort of college basketball deal, ESPN dominates the big east/acc but the pac 10 is extremely neglected by the networks...adding the pac 10 and mid majors wouldnt be too bad.

I'd love to see that.