I'd imagine Netflix is a much more popular platform than nbcsn or such. It also reaches an entirely new audience.
Hockey fans would easily fork over $8 a month to watch games. They do it all the time for streaming services.
ESPN + has been expanding quickly and may try to get more NHL games on it.
This is far more likely. ESPN may offer a $75-100 mil yr for more games on ESPN+ in addition to what the next NBC deal is. That would be worthwhile for NHL as ESPN would have a vested interest in boosting the league and there would be more spill over coverage and promotion from ESPN hopefully.
ESPN + has been expanding quickly and may try to get more NHL games on it.
This is far more likely. ESPN may offer a $75-100 mil yr for more games on ESPN+ in addition to what the next NBC deal is. That would be worthwhile for NHL as ESPN would have a vested interest in boosting the league and there would be more spill over coverage and promotion from ESPN hopefully.
ESPN+ has only 1 million subscribers which is about $60,000,000 in annual revenue. No way they will spend that much to get NHL rights. They won’t at least until they have more subscribers.
With subscription services you don't have to worry about ratings just subscribers to generate revenue. However, you need increasing amounts of people that want to watch the product first to capitalize on a subscriber based model of generating revenue long term before you start pulling free to watch content off of TV. NHL needs TV and the audience to grow at this point. Say if NHL got 300k diehards which is close to the avg. national audience size of NBCSN to subscribe to a service on Netflix for $8 a month that's $2.4 mil a month revenue generated times 12 months that's $28,800,000 yr in rev for Netflix.
So with that return plus the added viewers who didn't already have Netflix maybe they pay NHL roughly double... so $ 55 mil pr yr deal??
I think it's far easier to just work on generating a larger TV audience and get paid more vice taking away free games on TV available to a wider audience just to put them on Netflix.
BAMTech (which is now majority owned by Disney, hence the games on ESPN+) owns the digital rights through the 20-21 season.
They could technically put every out of market non-national TV game on ESPN+ right now if they wanted to. They won't be paying for "more games", however, they will need to pay to keep the digital rights, assuming they continue past that expiration point.
They aren't paying to "put games on ESPN+". The main reason they own the rights is to distribute NHL.TV.
There's no new contract; no new money.If they are separate legal entities won’t they be having to pay taxes on the transfer of the rights for those games to ESPN+? I was under the impression the games on ESPN+ was a new contract with ESPN.
ESPN + has been expanding quickly and may try to get more NHL games on it.
No, you cant. MLS teams play once maybe twice a week. MLS has a 30 some game regular season. Their tv ratings per game should be above the NHL's just due to inventory.As a fan of both leagues that is a rare occurrence and only happens when MLS Cup is aired on cable ESPN and not broadcast cable like FOX; that's like comparing a Stanley Cup Game on NBC vs NBCSN. Don't discount what he said though. You could say the same about Regular season MLS games this year pulling more/or about the same as some Stanley Cup games. There were numerous MLS regular season games that had 1.1+ mil viewers including one with 1.56 mil viewers.
NHL does have a ratings problem. The regular numbers are decreasing with multiple double digit % losses in viewership since NBC signed the 2011 deal. MLS ratings are up and look like they'll be up around 300k plus this season up from 258k last year.
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You talking about adults 18-49? The demographic which the NHL has no problem garnering?MLS is doing well in fast growing demographics the NHL has virtually no relevance in.
It is all about the local ratings. The NHL national telecasts do not do well outside of the participating markets. As much as the fans on here want to see Matthews and Laine, until they are playing in a large US market, they are not going to be on NBC, much. Eichel, yes as Buffalo does very well in their local market. Last I saw, they were 2nd only to Pittsburgh in local ratings.
My issue with NBCS is their insistence on these Wednesday Night rivalry games. Rangers play Chicago almost every year on this (sometimes twice) and the truth is, they are not rivals. Same for Rangers and Bruins. I get why they show them, they want the NY and Chicago markets, they want the NY and New England markets, so I guess it is just semantics.
No, you cant. MLS teams play once maybe twice a week. MLS has a 30 some game regular season. Their tv ratings per game should be above the NHL's just due to inventory.
Also, MLS' games on broadcast the last two years have averaged just 600,000 viewers. The NHL's worst OTA ratings are still over a million.
Regular season MLS games dont get as much as Stanley Cup games, the only year they even got close was 2007 due to a variety of factors.
The MLS cup final still fails to crack a million viewers.
And seriously, if the MLS gets $300-$400 million next tv deal (which it wont but I digress) then the NHL will get even more than that. More inventory and higher ratings with just the regular season package, and then those exclusive playoff games/Cup Finals games are just icing on the cake.
There is a reason the NHL makes near $4 Billion a year and the MLS just recently started to make a profit at all.
The MLS Cup has reached over a million viewers only twice since 2010, where are you getting your numbers?You are right with the $4 billion MLS makes $1 Billion a year for now, the profit thing has always been a CBA negotiating tactic. However I gotta respectfully disagree you most definitely are incorrect about MLS Cup still failing to crack a million viewers. There has literally only been 3 MLS Cups out of the 23 yr. history of MLS that have failed to crack million viewers, and that hasn't happened in almost a decade since 2010. MLS has a big presence and partnership with US Spanish TV, MLS Cup broadcast in simulcast Spanish in the US on two networks; which splits the viewing numbers. that's probably what you saw but didn't take the actual complete US TV viewing number into account. Also take into account you are comparing NHL to MLS Cup games that aren't on OTA cable every year like Stanley Cup is with NBC. So you're being a bit disingenuous. It wasn't until 2016 that FOX and ESPN started rotating MLS Cup years. ESPN had it last year, MLS Cup is back on FOX this year. Not sure why you underrate MLS, it's growing at a faster pace. Does it have NHL money no but it's rapidly growing. It's not hard to see how they get to at least a $300 mil per yr with their next TV deal coming 1 yr after ours. It's simple IMHO all of their sponsorship deals they've signed are going for 3/4x fold. They just signed a 6 yr/$700 mil dollar league wide deal with Adidas = $117mil per yr, that's an increase from a prior 8 yr/$200 mil dollar deal with Adidas that was $25mil per yr.
Next MLS TV ratings have increased every year since MLS signed it's TV deal in 2014. Lastly the biggest thing is multiple TV partners. MLS has 3 ESPN/FOX/and Univision, last deal in 2014 they all combined to add an increase of about 3.4x the last deal. So with increasing TV numbers and by 2022 MLS will have added 8 teams since the last TV deal was negotiated my prediction makes a hell of a lot more sense. If MLS got the same increase with adding more teams this go around than last TV deal $90mil x 3.4= $304 mil pr yr. Btw MLS plays 34 games. I understand about the 2007 Stanley Cup; I figured if you were gonna make wild statements like NHL regular season games in the US get more viewers than MLS Cup and not add in the context like for one it's rare or the NHL game might have been on broadcast cable like NBC, had a Kentucky Derby/Preakness lead in while it was also a Winter Classic game or Stadium Series game I'd take the same liberty and leave out context too
Hey I did say I think NHL gets $400-500 mil per year that's still more than the $300-450 mil per I think MLS gets. But I wouldn't tout our regular season numbers, nothing to crow about about NHL gets twice the amount of games on broadcast cable NBC than MLS gets with FOX and TV ratings are dropping, last year NBC/NBCSN TV rating was 417k, meanwhile MLS is rising. I do wonder what both leagues regular season numbers look like in 2021/2022. Our saving grace is our bulk of games and Stanley Cup Cup playoffs. My concern is declining Regular Season ratings may hurt our next TV deal. Below some stats for context.
MLS Regular Season Viewers Avg.
2014: 200k
2015: 229k
2016: 248k
2017: 258k
2018: 308k so far
MLS Cup Viewers (English-language) MLS Cup Viewers (Spanish-language)
YEAR: AVG. (NETWORK)
2017: 803,000 (ESPN)/2017: 304,000 (UniMas/Univision Deportes)=1,107,000
2016: 1,411,000 (FOX)/2016: 601,000 (Univision)=2,012,000
2015: 668,000 (ESPN)/2015: 300,000 (UniMas) 206,000 (Univision)=1,174,000
2014: 964,000 (ESPN)/2014: 678,000 (UniMas) 245,000 (Univision)=1,887,000
2013: 505,000 (ESPN)/2013: 514,000 (UniMas)=1,019,000
2012: 797,000 (ESPN)2012: 485,000 (*TeleFutura)=1,282,000
2011: 1,039,000 (ESPN)2011: 307,000(Galavision)=1,346,000
2010: 748,000 (ESPN)2010: 232,000 (Galavision)=980,000
2009: 1,141,000 (ESPN)
2008: 907,000 (ABC)
2007: 1,097,000 (ABC)
2006: 1,245,000 (ABC)
2005: 1,137,000 (ABC)
2004: 1,300,000 (ABC)
2003: 876,000 (ABC)
2002: 1,169,000 (ABC)
2001: 2,000,000(ABC)
2000: 1,200,000(ABC)
1999: 1,300,000(ABC)
1998: 2,200,000(ABC)
1997: 2,600,000(ABC)
1996: 3,100,000(ABC)
MLS Cup viewers on UniMas surpass those on ESPN
Where the 2016 MLS Cup ranks in TV ratings against previous finals - World Soccer Talk
2017 MLS Cup final viewership drops 43% across ESPN and Univision Deportes - World Soccer Talk
MLS sees 38% decline in 2015 MLS Cup TV viewing numbers - World Soccer Talk
Major League Soccer on television - Wikipedia
List of professional sports leagues by revenue - Wikipedia
Can the NHL crack 5 billion soon?
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The most surprising things about that chart are:
1- Although they serve only GB, The Premier League has nearly as much average revenue for its teams as does MLB. Wow. Think about that.
2- Again with soccer, Champions League, which is like the European playoffs, and has only 125 games in its ENTIRE schedule, makes the list. Think about that.
Going back a few weeks, I think it's fair to say the opening night ratings drop were largely in part to the Yankees home wild card game that same night. I'm sure the majority of the north east was tuned into that and not Hockey.
The MLS Cup has reached over a million viewers only twice since 2010, where are you getting your numbers?
Oh you're including the spanish language station which includes many non US viewers. Okay.
What Im really saying is for all the flak you give NHL fans for their NBA obsession you basically do the same thing comparing MLS to NHL.
Also, I really dont think MLS gets even 75 percent of the NHL's contract. They only get about 45% of it now, and their growth has only affected the regular season. The 2 months of the NHL playoffs are more valuable then the entirety of the regular season according to the NHL COO in 2012, the fact that the league has seen high/steady/increased playoff ratings without many big market teams having success recently is only more of a boon for the league's contract chances. Also the addition of Vegas and Seattle will only help as well
And thats just the American tv contract. Thats not including the $100 million for US digital rights or the c. $425 million from Canada or the millions from overseas.
The MLS has a long long long long way to go. We havent even gotten in to their player allocation system either.
If they don't sign the TV rights over to ESPN, NHL popularity is doomed. ESPN is by far the biggest sports broadcaster in the United States and even the world. They have the most followers on every social media site by a wide margin. This is especially important in todays age where more and more sports are being consumed on social media. Social media is where sports leagues can gain casual fans and easily promote their product. ESPN hardly ever posts any NHL highlights on twitter. I dont blame them, why should they? They dont have the TV rights theres no incentive to promote hockey. Any decision but ESPN is the wrong one.
The social media presence of the other broadcasters is minimal compared to ESPN. Having hockey shown to a large audience on twitter, facebook, instagram is vitally important especially for the younger demographics.And how is NHL doomed if they don't go to ESPN? ESPN hardly even cared about the NHL even when they had the tv rights.