Is the NHL even Relevant in the US?

Author: Illegal Curve

November 2, 2009

Illegal Curve`s E-Take is sponsored every Monday by Immunocal, the elite athlete nutritional supplement for muscular performance since 1996. www.wellnesswinnipeg.com.

As someone who lived in Canada for the majority of his life, I had always taken for granted the availability of hockey on pretty much any night of the week.  Even more so, I knew that if I had missed the night’s games then the highlights would be available on any of the sports networks (TSN, The Score, Sportsnet).  So, it becomes something of a culture shock when you move to the US and struggle to find any hockey games on television.  (It should be noted that I live in Michigan, the state responsible for producing the most U.S. born players currently playing in the NHL, so an expectation of nightly hockey seems somewhat legitimate).  Instead I am relegated to tuning into ESPN Sportscenter to see, at most, a quick 5 minute hockey package which usually entails 1-2 minutes of Barry Melrose showing off his mullet and his newest hockey cufflinks.

Here in the States, if you want to watch sports, then you are most likely watching on ESPN.  ESPN broadcasts 65 sports, 24 hours a day in 15 languages in more than 150 countries.  However the primary focus of ESPN is pretty much anything other than hockey except, interestingly, hockey does seem to play one important role.  It is often a staple of the Top 10 Highlights of the Night and there are usually at least 2-4 hockey clips per top 10.  So how is it that a sport that can provide such exciting action continues to fail to gain any significant traction with the premier provider of sports across the States?

Post lockout the NHL made the decision to sign a contract with Versus, which when you go to their online site refers to themselves as; “Versus, formerly the Outdoor Life Network, which offers the latest in sports programming including Professional Bullriding, College Football, and more”.  I guess that “and more” would be the NHL.  Now to be fair to Versus, they have done quite an admirable job with the NHL and this past year, the two sides extended the television contract to end in the 2010/11 season.  Versus has access to over 70 million viewers, although the recent showdown between cable giant Comcast, which owns Versus and DirectTv, has interrupted this for about a third of the audience.  In addition to the agreement with Versus the NHL signed an extension of their deal with NBC on July 15th, 2009 through the 2010-11 season.  NBC will broadcast nine regular season games (you can be sure of seeing the Rangers, Devils, Flyers, Penguins and maybe Wings), weekend games during the playoffs, and up to five games of the Stanley Cup finals.  As well they will cover the Winter Classic in Boston in 2010.

With both agreements set to expire in 2010/11, the NHL is possibly setting itself up for a return to the limelight here in the United States.  If the ratings for hockey continue to get stronger then the NHL might be able to switch Versus/NBC for ESPN/ABC.  The lure of ESPN is obvious.  They have a much larger audience (in excess of 92 million homes) and are a staple in bars, restaurants and hotels across the country.

However, the question remains what role would the NHL have with this network?  Would it be seen as a candidate for prime time on ESPN and ESPN 2 or can we expect to find hockey languishing on the backburner, seen as a runner up to Professional Poker and Bowling or will it be relegated to ESPN 5?  We won’t know the answer for at least another year, but hopefully whichever Network contracts with the NHL to be the provider of hockey coverage here in the United States, they will increase the coverage for hardcore hockey fans across the nation.

Written by David Minuk dave@illegalcurve.com.

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