NHL TV Deal: Bleeping Joke

[Darth Vitale]

I cannot believe the NHL has allowed Comcast and NBC to dictate such poor coverage terms of the Stanley Cup Finals. Both games 2 and 3 (the latter is on a f-ing SATURDAY) are on NBCSN only. Even if you paid for NHL.TV subscription during the season, you get no relief apparently.

Once again the NHL refuses to negotiate a good deal for their fans. How in the hell is it not the case that every year, NBC has all of the games, starting with Games 1 of the Conference Finals?? So NBC can televise BS summer game shows no one cares about or dance competitions?!... stuff that can be aired at any time without ill effect?! How about you move those to different times or days during the last rounds of the playoffs, NHL/NBC, you jagoffs.

This whole thing makes me sick. No wonder people go looking for streams. I hope they find 'em. NHL / Comcast / NBC deserves whatever lost ad revenues they get. Morons. Doesn't matter whether it's picking a band for the Winter Classic or TV deals, the NHL remains utterly clueless when it comes to doing television right. Whoever they're negotiating on behalf of, it's not their fans.

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[LeafFever]

The NHL will do anything to get any attention in the U.S. It is quite sad.

 

[varsaku]

The NHL will do anything to get any attention in the U.S. It is quite sad.

Unfortunately these BS summer game shows get better ratings than the playoff hockey. I think that has a lot to do with NHL's terrible marketing skills and lack of long term goals.

 

[SecretOilersFan]

Unfortunately these BS summer game shows get better ratings than the playoff hockey. I think that has a lot to do with NHL's terrible marketing skills and lack of long term goals.

Many on here cite terrible marketing skills but if you think about factors in how other sports get popular ease of play, inexpensiveness, a wide diversity of countries initially involved in the sports outset hockey fails on every aspect. Hockey in reality as a sport should be a niche olympic sport and not have the popularity it currently does.

Its too expensive for kids to enjoy it in a school setting and poorer countries can't develop it say like basketball and baseball due to the cost of rinks.

Hockey just has an infinitely harder time to market compared to baseball, basketball or the NFL who in order: one who has a century and half entrenchment in American culture, the other has more non white players to attract minorities and the fact that it is cheap to set up a court or basket and the last one also has the virtue of being entrenched in the culture not to mention the lack of games and massive stadiums turns every game into a massive media event.

The NHL doesn't need to beat out the NBA, NFL or MLB or even MLS as hispanics become more prominent in the US. They just need to slowly grow their audience.

If your upset that it isn't a major player in the USA's media game go after owners who didn't develop their communities and build more rinks or the fact the NHL should have had its first expansion after the great depression in the 50's instead of the late 60's.

Many on here have an inflated view of hockey some thinking that it is a major draw for the winter olympics when it really is like third or fourth in terms of viewership. The NBC deal isn't great but as someone who has been back in forth between the states and Canada I think the game is still more accessible and more popular than when ESPN had it.

 

[varsaku]

Many on here cite terrible marketing skills but if you think about factors in how other sports get popular ease of play, inexpensiveness, a wide diversity of countries initially involved in the sports outset hockey fails on every aspect. Hockey in reality as a sport should be a niche olympic sport and not have the popularity it currently does.

Its too expensive for kids to enjoy it in a school setting and poorer countries can't develop it say like basketball and baseball due to the cost of rinks.

Hockey just has an infinitely harder time to market compared to baseball, basketball or the NFL who in order: one who has a century and half entrenchment in American culture, the other has more non white players to attract minorities and the fact that it is cheap to set up a court or basket and the last one also has the virtue of being entrenched in the culture not to mention the lack of games and massive stadiums turns every game into a massive media event.

The NHL doesn't need to beat out the NBA, NFL or MLB or even MLS as hispanics become more prominent in the US. They just need to slowly grow their audience.

If your upset that it isn't a major player in the USA's media game go after owners who didn't develop their communities and build more rinks or the fact the NHL should have had its first expansion after the great depression in the 50's instead of the late 60's.

Many on here have an inflated view of hockey some thinking that it is a major draw for the winter olympics when it really is like third or fourth in terms of viewership. The NBC deal isn't great but as someone who has been back in forth between the states and Canada I think the game is still more accessible and more popular than when ESPN had it.

If accessibility is the issue, teams should be required to have youth academies like soccer teams do to have free hockey programs available to kids how have talent.

 

[tarheelhockey]

If accessibility is the issue, teams should be required to have youth academies like soccer teams do to have free hockey programs available to kids how have talent.

A lot of teams (all?) actually do have some form of what you're describing, but the problem is you simply can't do it for 50,000 kids. A few dozen players here or there is awesome (for them) but it doesn't move the needle as far as youth sports participation as a whole.

 

[SecretOilersFan]

If accessibility is the issue, teams should be required to have youth academies like soccer teams do to have free hockey programs available to kids how have talent.

There is again the innate problem that soccer the only required equipment is shoes and shinguards. I mean the reason I ended up being put into soccer and court sports like badminton instead of hockey in Canada as a kid even though I liked hockey more was that soccer and badminton were much cheaper in terms of equipment and fees ice rink vs open field tons of padding vs pads on your legs skates vs shoes. You can't get around that with hockey as someone has to pay.

There are just a lot of innate problems that come from the fact that the sport is a winter sport its played on a ice rink and that if you look up how much it costs to buy equipment the prices can get insane there are a lot of underlying reasons that have literally everything to do with how the game is played that harm the ability to market the game.

I mean I challenge anyone to say that NBA has the same level of difficulty to market compared to the NHL. IF we just looked at the game itself and ignore the media personalities and lack of old boy's club that the NBA also has which has a net increase in marketing it still is much easier to market.

Not saying the NHL couldn't do better as they have made some blunders recently (the VGK reveal, Olympics and too many outdoor games that destroyed the specialness of an outdoor game) but they have a much steeper hill to climb than any other major sports league does in the states including MLS.

 

[CrazyCanucks]

I cannot believe the NHL has allowed Comcast and NBC to dictate such poor coverage terms of the Stanley Cup Finals. Both games 2 and 3 (the latter is on a f-ing SATURDAY) are on NBCSN only. Even if you paid for NHL.TV subscription during the season, you get no relief apparently.

Once again the NHL refuses to negotiate a good deal for their fans. How in the hell is it not the case that every year, NBC has all of the games, starting with Games 1 of the Conference Finals?? So NBC can televise BS summer game shows no one cares about or dance competitions?!... stuff that can be aired at any time without ill effect?! How about you move those to different times or days during the last rounds of the playoffs, NHL/NBC, you jagoffs.

This whole thing makes me sick. No wonder people go looking for streams. I hope they find 'em. NHL / Comcast / NBC deserves whatever lost ad revenues they get. Morons. Doesn't matter whether it's picking a band for the Winter Classic or TV deals, the NHL remains utterly clueless when it comes to doing television right. Whoever they're negotiating on behalf of, it's not their fans.

Why is having a playoff game on a Saturday bad??? Its not normal when there are no games on Saturdays...

 

[tarheelhockey]

Why is having a playoff game on a Saturday bad??? Its not normal when there are no games on Saturdays...

I think he's saying there's no excuse for not having it on the main channel on a Saturday, which is historically one of the weaker TV nights with no big shows on.

 

[Semantics]

There is again the innate problem that soccer the only required equipment is shoes and shinguards. I mean the reason I ended up being put into soccer and court sports like badminton instead of hockey in Canada as a kid even though I liked hockey more was that soccer and badminton were much cheaper in terms of equipment and fees ice rink vs open field tons of padding vs pads on your legs skates vs shoes. You can't get around that with hockey as someone has to pay.

There are just a lot of innate problems that come from the fact that the sport is a winter sport its played on a ice rink and that if you look up how much it costs to buy equipment the prices can get insane there are a lot of underlying reasons that have literally everything to do with how the game is played that harm the ability to market the game.

I mean I challenge anyone to say that NBA has the same level of difficulty to market compared to the NHL. IF we just looked at the game itself and ignore the media personalities and lack of old boy's club that the NBA also has which has a net increase in marketing it still is much easier to market.

Not saying the NHL couldn't do better as they have made some blunders recently (the VGK reveal, Olympics and too many outdoor games that destroyed the specialness of an outdoor game) but they have a much steeper hill to climb than any other major sports league does in the states including MLS.

The world is getting increasingly affluent and this is way less of a problem than it used to be. The pool of organized hockey players is several times larger today than it was 30-40 years ago. More people can afford to play. In 10-20 years as the country continues to develop I could easily imagine tens or even hundreds of thousands of registered players in China - IF the NHL markets the game right. There is no shortage of Chinese people with a lot of money to spend, just look at the Vancouver and Toronto housing markets.

Nowadays kids not only get as much ice time as ever, but the top kids train year round. When I was growing up you just played/practiced with your team in the season. Now kids have special coaches and sessions for power skating, skills development, strength training, and so forth. Parents clearly have more money to put into it.

I don't buy the argument that you can't just put on shoes and grab a ball and play. Ever heard of street hockey? You just need some cheap sticks and a net. Roller blades aren't that expensive if you want to add some skating to the mix. It worked well enough for us as kids, I don't see why it can't work anywhere in the world.

People here are making it seem like kids 30 years ago lived in the rink and now you have to be a millionaire to play. That is just ridiculous. Ice time on a real rink was just as scarce for us back then as it is for kids now, if not more so. They even have synthetic ice now. It kind of sucks, but it was good enough to help Auston Matthews get to the NHL.

Bottom line is that the game is more accessible to play than it's ever been. The reason it isn't growing much is that the NHL is failing at marketing, simple as that. Instead of simple changes that would help the game tremendously, like making the nets 2" wider, they focus on completely unproductive nonsense like 5 minute reviews that nit-pick over offside calls that happened 30 seconds earlier and had nothing to do with the play. They have the most exciting major sport here, which at one point was gaining on the NBA and ripe to overtake it, and instead they are driving away viewers.

 

[Man Bear Pig]

Everyone remember when the NHL had that deal with OLN? The owners of this league are absolutely short sighted and only care about profits in the now. What an absolute disaster that was for the league. The league will always have issues with TV in the U.S but they certainly don't help themselves either.

 

[cptjeff]

Everyone remember when the NHL had that deal with OLN? The owners of this league are absolutely short sighted and only care about profits in the now. What an absolute disaster that was for the league. The league will always have issues with TV in the U.S but they certainly don't help themselves either.

OLN offered to pay them money. ESPN offered to put them on TV, but not pay them money.

Oh, and OLN became Versus became NBC Sports- it's the same channel. OLN saw the NHL as their path to expansion, so they paid more for the rights than anyone else would. And it worked nearly instantly- with the NHL as their star property and the focus of much of their programming, they got much more revenue and much higher ratings than they had had, rebranded, bought better programming with the revenue they now had, and eventually grew enough that they're on pretty much all cable packages in the US- still with the NHL as their centerpiece programming. The NHL was actually thinking long term here- they could either continue to beg ESPN for table scraps, or they could be the star attraction a channel on the rise.

As for the subject of this thread, the reason two games of the final are on NBC Sports is that it's mandated contractually, a holdover from before it was NBC Sports. OLN/VS wanted a piece of the finals ratings to help build themselves as a network, and were willing to pay for that. Even though the broadcast and cable networks now share ownership, NBC still has that same motivation, they're still looking to build up NBCSN, so expect that practice to continue.

 

[Doctor No]

Everyone remember when the NHL had that deal with OLN?

NBC Sports *was* OLN (it's the same network).

In hindsight, that was the correct deal to choose among those that were offered. I guess the owners' sightedness isn't particularly short in this regard.

 

[Elias Pettersson]

It's 2017. There are free programs with better streaming quality than game center. Just go Google them.

I've caught almost every game this year online for free and at 720p60fps

 

[TaLoN]

Everyone remember when the NHL had that deal with OLN? The owners of this league are absolutely short sighted and only care about profits in the now. What an absolute disaster that was for the league. The league will always have issues with TV in the U.S but they certainly don't help themselves either.

Yes, after they were dropped by ESPN and no other network even wanted to make a bid. OLN was shortly later re-branded as the VS network and started growing to the point where NBC decided it was worth buying and then it was again re-branded as NBC Sports Network.

You blame the league for the OLN deal... when the league at the time actually came to them like a beggar because nobody else would have them. If anything, you could say that saved the league from falling apart financially, and actually started them back on a track of ratings growth, which was something they hadn't had in a long time.

The Contract with the network has also improved since that first one as well, so you may say it was a mistake, but they simply had no alternative for a national network.

 

[SecretOilersFan]

The world is getting increasingly affluent and this is way less of a problem than it used to be. The pool of organized hockey players is several times larger today than it was 30-40 years ago. More people can afford to play. In 10-20 years as the country continues to develop I could easily imagine tens or even hundreds of thousands of registered players in China - IF the NHL markets the game right. There is no shortage of Chinese people with a lot of money to spend, just look at the Vancouver and Toronto housing markets.

Nowadays kids not only get as much ice time as ever, but the top kids train year round. When I was growing up you just played/practiced with your team in the season. Now kids have special coaches and sessions for power skating, skills development, strength training, and so forth. Parents clearly have more money to put into it.

I don't buy the argument that you can't just put on shoes and grab a ball and play. Ever heard of street hockey? You just need some cheap sticks and a net. Roller blades aren't that expensive if you want to add some skating to the mix. It worked well enough for us as kids, I don't see why it can't work anywhere in the world.

People here are making it seem like kids 30 years ago lived in the rink and now you have to be a millionaire to play. That is just ridiculous. Ice time on a real rink was just as scarce for us back then as it is for kids now, if not more so. They even have synthetic ice now. It kind of sucks, but it was good enough to help Auston Matthews get to the NHL.

Bottom line is that the game is more accessible to play than it's ever been. The reason it isn't growing much is that the NHL is failing at marketing, simple as that. Instead of simple changes that would help the game tremendously, like making the nets 2" wider, they focus on completely unproductive nonsense like 5 minute reviews that nit-pick over offside calls that happened 30 seconds earlier and had nothing to do with the play. They have the most exciting major sport here, which at one point was gaining on the NBA and ripe to overtake it, and instead they are driving away viewers.

World is becoming increasingly affluent??? Have stats to back that up? There is an increase in people feeling that the cost isn't worth it.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/spo...tun-former-nhl-great-messier/article13567822/

Also my comment was regarding inner cities in the United States. A large percentage of athletes in the NFL, NBA or MLB come from familes or countries that aren't part of the typical middle class or in the MLB case part of the first world. They instead can refine their skills because the sport is cheap (soccer) or because their highschool supports the sport (American football).

Also street hockey hardly allows you to bring the same game to the ice whereas the other sports there is no difference. Finally no one said millionaires but you do need to be part of the middle class to higher end of the middle class. Finally yes maybe it isn't that much more expensive comparatively today to the past however their are more sports that Canadians are aware of and more parents have changed their enrollment patterns that is undeniable.

But again I would like anyone here to say that the NHL has the same level of difficulty to market compared to the NBA/NFL/MLB in America.

 

[LeafsNation75]

Everyone remember when the NHL had that deal with OLN? The owners of this league are absolutely short sighted and only care about profits in the now. What an absolute disaster that was for the league. The league will always have issues with TV in the U.S but they certainly don't help themselves either.

I remember that was when NBC cut away from Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Finals between the Sabres and Senators prior to the overtime, so they could show their pre-race coverage of the Preakness Stakes horse race. However those who lived in Buffalo and Rochester watching on NBC were not effected by it.