Since the end of the phenomenal Gold Medal game yesterday, everyone has been talking about how much good it could do the NHL. My guess? Probably not very much. The reasoning for it helping the NHL makes sense; an exciting game that not only showcased some of the league’s best players, but also the game itself could go a long way in getting folks to tune in or go to a game. The problem however lies in one very big thing: TV. Currently, the NHL is shown nationally on Versus and the NHL Network, with NBC providing a Game of the Week. Games are also featured regionally on the Fox Sports Network and similar regional cable channels, as well as through packages like NHL Center Ice which provides access to every game.
The issue comes with picking up the casual fan. If they have basic cable and are outside of the market of a team, they only have access to the NBC Game of the Week, which may not even be carried by their local affiliate. Furthermore, DirecTV subscribers don’t get Versus, due to a completely silly feud with Comcast, who owns the network. That leaves the Fox Sports channels, but they’re blocked out if you don’t have NHL Center Ice. The NHL Network is there, but again, but that doesn’t have the same number of households as ESPN or Fox Sports.
The fact that ESPN has no hockey is a major deterrent for the sport. Part of the reason they don’t cover the sport very much is that it’s the only major league they don’t carry at all. ESPN shows games from the NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR, and even MLS. The NHL won’t get a lot of coverage if they don’t need to promote it for their own broadcasts. To make matters even worse, the playoffs aren’t even all on national TV, with the games being shown on Versus. That means there are only a handful of games on NBC, with the most exciting hockey of the year being shown on a network that not only is on cable, but isn’t available to 14 million DirecTV subscribers.
So how do you expect an increase in viewers if it’s that hard to watch? This is the big problem facing NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, and I’m not sure what he can do. He’s a pretty inept commissioner to begin with, but his hands are tied by his contracts with Versus and NBC. If we truly have Hockey Fever from the Olympics, he’s going to need to pressure those two networks into making the league more visible, and, in the case of Versus, accessible. This is the best opportunity the NHL has had since the lockout during the 2004-05 season to redeem itself and start getting sports fans to tune in, not just hockey fans. They have a tremendous product that is being badly missed by the general sports-watching population, and it’s now or never fix that.
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