The NHL has reached a seven-year agreement with ESPN to become one of the league’s media partners next season, according to reporting done by Chris Johnston of Sportsnet. The league has not announced the deal yet and Johnston does not have confirmation on the other media company that will be involved. The deal with ESPN is for one-half of the league’s U.S. media rights, which will include four Stanley Cup Finals between 2022 and 2028 in addition to streaming rights for Disney.
More information about the deal is obviously needed, but this could be a very strong step in the right direction for the league, at least in terms of getting back to full financial health. The flat cap which has hindered so many teams this season isn’t likely to change right away, but a strong broadcast deal could get the league on track to start increasing the ceiling once again.
- The Vancouver Canucks will be without top forward Elias Pettersson for at least another week, according to head coach Travis Green. The team is actually on a three-game winning streak even despite his absence, but still have a long way to go if they want to climb up the North Division table. Vancouver currently sits just three points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the last playoff spot but has played five more games than them. Pettersson, 22, had 21 points in 26 games this season.
- The Pittsburgh Penguins, in action already today against the New York Rangers, named Katerina Wu to the team’s hockey operations department earlier today. Wu will hold the position of data scientist and be asked to “design and implement new statistics to evaluate player and team performance.” She will report to Penguins’ director of hockey operations Sam Ventura and work closely with Nick Citrone, who was recently promoted to senior data scientist of hockey and business operations.
ESPN is going to need to hire some people who know hockey because the channel is completely clueless when it comes to hockey. They called Blake Coleman a defenseman last season when he was traded to Tampa Bay.
Linda Cohen, Barry Melrose
Jay & Dan
ESPN isnt focused on sports anymore. Every time I go in a bar or resturaunt and its on in the corner they are talking about what a basketball player thinks about a social topic.
@ericl – Well, they used to have solid PxP, analysts and desk guys. Of course that was 30-ish years ago, too. As @Al Hirschen states, Linda & Barry are still there, along with Steve “Mr. Overtime” Levy. And, I don’t want to stain the other guys’ reps to include Buccigross with them. That’s a somewhat bare cupboard, isn’t it? I agree with @JP8 about their content direction. It’s focused on propagating a political agenda, not covering sports like they used to. They’ll die on the vine if they continue to hemorrhage viewers.
You are still smarting over criminal Trump loss I see.
Maybe Gary Thorne can come back to announcing hockey after MASN let him go. Orioles cut so many iconic voices this year.
@2012orioles – MASN let him go??? They’re certified dopes. This is worse than what SportsNet did (somewhat) recently. If Gary comes back to any network to do NHL games, their ratings go up from the over-40 crowd, and their relatives. I just checked out a Baltimore Sun article about the mess that just reads as a total tire fire.
What??? The O’s dumped Gary??
@amk1920 – Yep. Look up the Baltimore Sun article on it. It looks like they cleaned house with a sledgehammer.
data scientist? that’s what im studying.
@DarkSide830 – Just remember, no correlating discombobulated data sets to jam a proverbial square peg into a round hole. Otherwise, you’ll end up getting a “job” offer from J. Chayka! ;)
For very different reasons and long before the current group of people who hate ESPN started hating ESPN, I hated ESPN.
I’ve been so happy to not have it in my life since the last NHL deal expired, a few Monday Night Footballs and Sunday Night Baseballs aside.
Being the most important thing on NBCSN >>> being the forgotten stepchild on ESPN.
BUT…hiring Gary Thorne would ease some of the sting. The ONLY guy qualified to succeed Doc.
@forwhomjoshbelltolled – Thumbs up for that!
Tiny note discovered in the NHL.com article. NHL.TV goes away to become part of ESPN+. Does that mean we will lose the smattering of free games on NHL.com next season? I guess we’ll have to wait and see. They had a hard time justifying the previous price tag on NHL.com, especially with the seemingly never-ending access problems. I’m sure they’ll get it right this time. Evander Kane promised to help me find a place to bet on it!