The NHL, NBC, and Winter Classic -- How the NHL Hurts Its' Teams and Itself

Thanks for the feedback!

At first I jokingly laughed at your Sidney Crosby answer for why Pittsburgh has been so heavily adored by the league, and then when I realized you’re probably right, I cried for the 29 other teams that might be looked at by NBC and the league much differently had they only sucked as much as Pittsburgh for that one year.

While NBC most probably only cares about the ratings and doesn’t give two figs about growing the sport (though the argument might be made that they do to a degree since they’re locked into a long-term broadcasting deal with them)

I’m glad that you touched on how NBC should be concerned with the welfare of the NHL because of the huge contract they just signed. But the reason I didn’t mention it until the end of my post is because I believe the reasons below show why NBC doesn’t care at all.

I couldn’t agree more with you that the "Game of The Week" is an awful name. But wait a second, because it’s my opinion that if you put yourself in the shoes of the NHL/NBC you’ll figure out exactly why they use this title to describe the game….

Let’s picture anyone — from the non-NHL fan, to the barely casual, to above average fan — scrolling through the channels on a Sunday. As this fan gets near NBC they’ll notice the description of "NHL Game of The Week – Live" on the channel guide. What the hell does "Game of The Week" mean anyway? I bet most people might assume that the NHL and NBC are predicting this game to be the most interesting/entertaining of all the NHL games that week. And based on the title can you blame anyone for thinking this way? But as more dedicated hockey fans than most, we know that this is complete BS.

1) We know that you can’t predict what the best weekly game will be, and that they certainly aren’t all going to fall on Sundays when the league hardly schedules on Sundays to begin with.

3) We know that the matchups they choose are done during the summer using little more than just speculation. And that the teams involved in these matchups always include a member of the chosen 7, and even in the instances where there’s actually flex matchups, the backups also consist of these chosen teams.

4) We know that above all, the reason these teams were chosen to participate in these games is because they all represent big U.S. cities whose fans watch hockey. They’re 100% guaranteed to be at least decent ratings wise for NBC, and they’re 0% guaranteed to be a good game for the fan.

I think that the NHL signed over the rights granting permission to NBC to choose which games and teams are featured. Hockey can obviously survive even if NBC only broadcasts the same 7 or 15 teams each year. NBC knows that it isn’t killing the league and thus hurting itself by only broadcasting “safe bet” games for TV ratings.

So who’s the loser in all of this besides the fans/players of the teams who never get to see their favorite team on the national spotlight? How about the casual fan who was clicking through the channels and noticed “NHL Game of The Week” and decided to tune in only to see what could very possibly be an average or below average game in quality? This same casual fan who was purposely duped by the NHL/NBC into thinking there was something special about this game might not ever watch hockey again.

Like I said before, you can never predict the quality of a game beforehand. But for the NHL to allow NBC to get away with so little flexibility in which teams play just shows to me that the NHL doesn’t even itself care whether or not that Sunday game is any good or not. And considering how the Sunday game is pretty much the best possible method right now to reach out to the casual fan, it also shows how dumb the NHL is.

your not helping the teams that are quite talented and could really us the help. the sharks have been amazing recently, so why havent they been featured at all? even them traveling one of the special seven would be better for me. its almost as if the league wants to go back to the original 6 in terms of teams that matter. i really think its a mistake. if im not a hockey fan in san jose, even watching this game how does it help me get invested in hockey? the winter classic was a brilliant idea, but they are ruining it by making it routine. now, if the capitals eventually start to suck and they keep with them i can understand; since it will be a detroit lions on thanksgiving kinda thing. but i serious doubt that will ever happen.

Thanks for the response.

Obviously we disagree about all of these points, but I’m still shocked to hear you give the NHL so much credit on some of these issues. You’re also a little misinformed about a few things so I’ll try to clear them up.

1. is just a difference of opinion. You say don’t compare the NFL to the NHL because one has wildly successful ratings and the other does not. I say go ahead and compare them for precisely that reason. You say the NFL has an “advantage” over having games nationally televised because they have fewer games in a season. I say that since the NHL has fewer teams and more than 5 times as many games, there’s absolutely no excuse to not have every team televised on NBC/Versus at least once.

1. is filled with misinformation.

The NHL can’t afford to ‘grow’ the game, or it will find itself without a network.

You didn’t mention it but the NHL signed a $2 billion deal with NBC/Versus this year that will last for ten years. Both ESPN and Fox were also competing to receive the rights to broadcast the NHL. I supported sticking with NBC/Versus.

and a network that generously offered to show the games for free. It’s at the mercy of the networks.

I don’t know where you got this idea/information but I wish you wouldn’t have posted it here without doing research first. Under no circumstances is a television contract solely “at the mercy of the networks”. Since the lockout Versus has been paying the NHL $75 million a year. And I’m sorry if you feel that the NBC signed on to broadcast the NHL out of goodwill, but the truth is that they obviously got a lot out of it. The NHL was trying to expand and NBC saw an opportunity to broadcast a sport that would generate better ratings and advertising money than any other option they had planned.

Does it make sense to you, and can you think of any show in history that has ever had to pay the network to be on TV? TV stations pick and choose which shows (or sports leagues) are broadcast on their network by calculating their popularity and potential for advertisement placement. TV networks pay royalties for the programming and even music that is played on their stations based on this criteria. So to clear up this point, ESPN paid the NHL $120 to broadcast games from 1999-2004, that’s about $20million a year. After only one missed season because of the lockout, Versus signed a six year deal that gave the NHL $75million a year. That’s a raise of more than $50million per year even after the lockout. The NHL was still a proven commodity and the only reason NBC didn’t pay them even more during those years is because of a revenue sharing agreement they forged with the league instead. Now the league is getting $2billion for the next ten years, and the revenue sharing clause is gone. When the deal got signed in April here’s what Dick Ebersol, Chairman of NBC Sports had to say:

""Our run of not paying anything for a number of years is over with this deal. We are paying a substantial part, not the majority."

1. Here’s what you have to say:
   

   Ratings in markets of the team that are playing in a ‘national game’ are good, but take away the eyeballs watching in the two cities of the teams going head to head, and hockey’s ratings are abysmal. You wonder why the NHL isn’t serving caviar when they can barely afford the ramen noodles.

And here’s what the statistics say as of 2011:

Overall NHL television ratings in the United States increased by 84 percent over the last four years

The NHL said it is on pace this season to set a record for total revenue, surpassing $2.9 billion overall.

Think about where we live and how lucky we are as hockey fans. If you’re like me when I’m at home in NJ, you get the channels for the Devils, Islanders, and Rangers. I also get Versus, NHL Network, and subscribe to GameCenter on NHL.com. How about a fan in Colorado, do you think they’re getting the feeds from 3 different local teams during the season? The reason I bring this up is from my own experiences. I recently graduated from college in Pennsylvania and I’m now going to graduate school in Boston. In PA, the entire school could only watch Penguins games. The Flyers played 3 hours away but were still blacked out. In Boston, we only get the Bruins. In both locations we were lucky enough to get Versus, and we would watch whatever hockey game was on that night. People want to watch hockey even if it isn’t their team. I don’t understand why you’d think otherwise. Just think about all the illegal streams that are out there. Versus should be broadcasting a game every night.

1. Lastly, you kind of made up another point. I never asserted that the games between the chosen 7 teams weren’t good. I said that since the teams and match ups are picked during the summer before the season even starts, that the games

   "could very possibly be an average or below average game in quality

Pretend that before the season started, the league scheduled both Chicago at Philadelphia and Carolina at Tampa Bay for Sunday games on Jan. 22 at 1pm EST. Now fast forward to December and let’s pretend that Chicago and Philadelphia are both last place in their division, and Carolina/Tampa are doing great. The league has plenty of time to decide if they should switch the “Game of The Week” to the lesser market teams that are playing much better hockey. Do you think that they would do it?

Overall I’m sorry if I got defensive but I just felt kind of insulted because I spent a lot of time (messing around at work) doing research and trying to be accurate, and I thought you just countered it by making up some things based on what you thought was true.

I’ve read your comments on ILWT for long enough to know that I’ve agreed with you on a ton of things in the past. And since my original post here is just my opinion, I always try to always respect everyone else’s opinion too.

Love the idea about NYR vs Montreal at Yankee Stadium even if it isn’t our Devs. But the reason they couldn’t have it there this year is because of “scheduling conflicts with the late December Pinstripe Bowl”

The new Giants/Jets stadium was also not available because the Giants play their last regular season game there against Dallas on New Years this year.

I am definitely keeping my fingers crossed for MetLife stadium to be used in the near future, but only if the Devils are involved :)

Yeah I think its complete BS too. The Winter Classic is made into such a spectacle that everyone there is riled up. Players that don’t normally make that big hit or go for that extra play are going to do it just because of the rarity of the opportunity and the national scale it is being televised on.

Nashville and New Jersey or boring? I think it’d make for a great Winter Classic.