The bottom line is that the National Hockey League must continue to improve their marketing and promotion strategy.
They made this promise when the declaration was made the lockout was over and announced their "relaunch".
Yes, they bombarded us with promos most of last season, but it seemed only during commercial breaks
of actual game telecasts. The NHL needs to promote itself a lot more when the games aren't on television.
Catch fans also when they aren't watching games. You aren't going to target new fans if you cannot find them
outside promoting during games.
As far as the NHL Network is concerned, it is badly needed here in the United States. This is regardless of how much
it may not be great to some Canadian fans that have it now. ESPN turned its collective back on the league.
I've resented ESPN for it regardless of what their business reasons are. They started doing this well before the lockout.
NHL 2Night was the only true hockey show we could get our fix down here. But, it lost its viewership over time
as ESPN screwed with its timeslot and pushed it into the overnight hours on game nights before it finally
went off the air two years ago. Truly sad it's gone.
It's been a risky venture for Comcast adding the NHL to
OLN (about to be Versus), but it's been worth it.
At least we have a network that genuinely wants to cover the NHL here. But it's only the first step.
Adding the NHL Network to American cable and satellite systems would be a greater help.
But it must be launched where everyone gets it at the beginning, not a phase-in to cable systems.
The NFL Network is not even on Cablevision in the New York City metropolitan area.
NBA TV was only added earlier this year. The NHL Network cannot afford to do anything less.
I'd rather wait a year if it means launching the channel
in the best possibly way.
I'm talking about programming and anything great we've yet to see that can be offered.
While money to operate the NHL Network could be steep, the NHL must do it.
They hastily put NHL Network on the air here and the programming sucks or is just carbon copy
of the Canadian version, it will never be successful.