NHL sells European broadcasting rights to Medge Consulting/AMI for 5 years

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Medge Consulting together with its partner Advisers Media International (AMI) have signed an agreement to represent the international media rights for the NHL in Europe, Africa and the Middle East. The contract spans a period of five years from the season starting in 2011 and ending in 2016 The agreement establishes a long-term and strategic cooperation to expand, develop and strengthen the NHL brand and presence in international markets. The agreement includes the live HD broadcast rights for up to 480 NHL games per season, including playoffs, Stanley Cup Final and the NHL Winter Classic amongst others and a range of highlights programming and NHL support programming.

Medge Consulting is a Swedish rights trader, AMI a British media agency. Their biggest previous coup appears to have been the purchase of English Premier League rights for Sweden and Finland.

The rights were previously held by ESPN and thus the big question, of course, is here whether this means the end of Europe-wide NHL broadcasting on ESPN America and bigger national deals in countries where there is interest and a big question mark in countries where there is no national broadcaster interested in showing NHL.

Link: http://www.cisionwire.com/medge-con...the-international-media-rights-for-t,c9142209

Click to read more...

 

[Franck]

I guess this means that Viasat will become the only broadcaster of the NHL in Sweden.

No more NHL hockey on TV for me then.

 

[HabsByTheBay]

I would assume for the UK this just means ESPN America has to pay more, because I can't imagine anyone else being interested.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

ESPN America I believe has a separate UK version already so it would be possible for them to individually buy the UK rights though who knows how that would work out. It was obviously all very easy and simple when ESPN held the distribution rights...

The nightmare scenario is of course a return to the "bad old days" in Europe when a lot of those rights were dormant and much of Europe was a black hole for NHL coverage.

I do wonder as well how this would affect the marketing of the Center Ice internet broadcast package through ESPN in Europe.

 

[Franck]

I do wonder as well how this would affect the marketing of the Center Ice internet broadcast package through ESPN in Europe.

It might survive in the UK/other countries where ESPN might buy the rights, but there is basically no chance that the service will survive in Sweden.
Viasat and Canal+ both have their own (rather useless) online streaming services and they will likely want to add the NHL to the list of content offered if they secure the rights.

I don't really understand why the NHL does not keep the global internet streaming rights to themselves though, it shouldn't be that difficult to open up Gamecenter/Centre Ice to non-North American users.

 

[The Angry Teatowel]

Hmm, interested to see how this shakes out. I don't think it'll affect me too much given that I am usually a naughty boy and use a certain streaming website! May affect them though as a lot of the better/HD streams were of ESPN America's coverage.

Also kinda scuppers any plans of working on NHL for ESPN America down the line!! BALLS.

 

[AlanHUK]

hopefully it won't effect the UK broadcasting, or the ESPN center ice streaming.

 

[canuckster19]

Ugh

ESPN America was smart enough to show Hockey Night in Canada for at least all of the Canucks games.

Funny enough they started broadcasting game 1 of the finals with the NBC feed, but that must have pissed a lot of people off, including myself, because the CBC feed was turned on after 5 minutes.

The Swedish channels are too dumb to pick up the Canadian feed, and they have their own god awful commentary.

 

[AlanHUK]

Ugh

ESPN America was smart enough to show Hockey Night in Canada for at least all of the Canucks games.

They showed every HNIC of the season, either live or the next day 'as live' in the UK it was awesome, and it will suck if that's gone this season

 

[Franck]

The Swedish channels are too dumb to pick up the Canadian feed, and they have their own god awful commentary.

What's wrong with Calle Johansson?

 

[welshrangersfan]

anyone got any idea what this actually means in layman's terms? Am I right in thinking that this AMI/Medge now own the rights to distribute to the highest bidder internationally? So in theory, here in the UK, if ESPN America decide not to bid, given that no-one else in the UK market would be interested, we could end if with nothing at all? Oh dear.

 

[Confucius]

Does anyone know how much the league got for the rights?

 

[Jumptheshark]

I can just see how much trouble this will cause here in the UK

 

[Mwd711]

anyone got any idea what this actually means in layman's terms? Am I right in thinking that this AMI/Medge now own the rights to distribute to the highest bidder internationally? So in theory, here in the UK, if ESPN America decide not to bid, given that no-one else in the UK market would be interested, we could end if with nothing at all? Oh dear.

You have that correct.

http://paranoidpuck.wordpress.com/2011/07/05/nhl-sells-international-rights/

Where this leaves broadband rights and current rights holders is still up in the air as they will now need to make a bid to Medge/AMI and go from there.

All that has changed is instead of ESPN selling the rights, Medge will sell them. According to everything I've read, nobody seems to know how much the league got. It's mostly just the press release and that's it. The league is getting more games out of the deal so that's good but if ESPN America decides to pass, it will make it look ugly compared to the old deal.

 

[Jussi]

All this means that NHL will continue to be on pay tv and out of sights on free tv.

 

[Dolemite]

anyone got any idea what this actually means in layman's terms? Am I right in thinking that this AMI/Medge now own the rights to distribute to the highest bidder internationally? So in theory, here in the UK, if ESPN America decide not to bid, given that no-one else in the UK market would be interested, we could end if with nothing at all? Oh dear.

Based on what was written in the link above.....

The NHL denied ESPN again in Europe as they didn't want to compete with the other sports they broadcast.

This looks to be a similar deal with NBC Universal/Comcast/Borg Collective/Whatever in that the NHL is going to do what it takes to get as much exposure of their product in Europe. ESPN America only had limited games during the regular season and this deal will show up to 480 games....across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

As for the online part, it will probably be like the NBC deal here where it will be announced at a later date and take online broadcasting to another level.

 

[Franck]

Based on what was written in the link above.....

The NHL denied ESPN again in Europe as they didn't want to compete with the other sports they broadcast.

This looks to be a similar deal with NBC Universal/Comcast/Borg Collective/Whatever in that the NHL is going to do what it takes to get as much exposure of their product in Europe. ESPN America only had limited games during the regular season and this deal will show up to 480 games....across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

As for the online part, it will probably be like the NBC deal here where it will be announced at a later date and take online broadcasting to another level.

A game almost every night apart from when it clashes with the World Series or with College football bowl games is hardly "limited coverage". With this new deal in place there is a significant risk of the NHL not being shown on TV at all in many parts of Europe.

 

[Dolemite]

A game almost every night apart from when it clashes with the World Series or with College football bowl games is hardly "limited coverage". With this new deal in place there is a significant risk of the NHL not being shown on TV at all in many parts of Europe.

This contract has the potential for viewers to see much more than what ESPN America offered. That's the point I was making.

 

[TheMoreYouKnow]

Unless the NHL opens its own network (and if they wanted to do that, they wouldn't sell the rights to a rights trader), there's basically zero chance there will be more games on TV in Europe at large.

Sweden and Finland, there's a slim chance of more games if Viasat goes all out, buys these rights and just turns Viasat Hockey into Viasat NHL basically.

UK? Outside of ESPN there's no real bidder there, if BSkyB and/or a channel like Five were interested you'd be looking at considerably less games than ESPN America offered (one a week type deal).

Benelux, France and Germany, highly unlikely any FTA channels would be interested and with the premium channels, you'd be looking at one game a week type deals (past experience).

Truth is that the NHL landscape in Europe prior to ESPN America or rather its predecessor NASN, was a giant black hole. Channels that had the rights barely used them, shuffled broadcasts around for other more popular sports etc.

 

[Chileiceman]

Horrible deal for the fans in Europe unless ESPN America buys the rights again

 

[RedBruin]

I do wonder as well how this would affect the marketing of the Center Ice internet broadcast package through ESPN in Europe.

Any update on that ?

 

[AlanHUK]

It's not on there at the moment. And there is nothing yet to indicate it will be.

 

[RedBruin]

It's not on there at the moment. And there is nothing yet to indicate it will be.

Yeah saw that. But I can't remember when they've actually put the NHL offer up last year. Might be just too early.

 

[IslesNorway]

As long as it doesn't affect the ESPN center ice package for us Europeans I won't be too bothered here in Norway. I am quite happy with ESPN America but I doubt there will be any other channels begging to take over.

 

[HabsByTheBay]

This contract has the potential for viewers to see much more than what ESPN America offered. That's the point I was making.

Well, except that ESPN America is effectively the only bidder in Europe willing to show these games except for a couple countries.

ESPN America's done hockey right here in the UK, and there's absolutely no reason to think any channel - any - would even come within 10% of their output. If ESPN took their ball and went home, the NHL is screwed. They probably won't because along with MLB, NHL is the core of ESPN America's output, but if the NHL seems to think they can luck into a Versus they're mistaken.