Earlier this year, the NHL announced a long-term agreement with Disney and ESPN for the “A” package of their multimedia broadcast rights. The other portion of the rights, deemed the “B” package, was still involved in a bidding process that included the incumbent broadcaster NBC, Fox Sports, and CBS. Seemingly at the last minute, Turner Sports entered the fray and have signed a seven-year agreement with the NHL that will begin in the 2021-22 season. The agreement brings the Stanley Cup Playoffs to TNT and TBS for the first time, while also including up to 72 regular season games and the Winter Classic each season.
TNT will have live coverage of three Stanley Cup Finals over the seven years and half of the playoffs each season. The agreement also includes streaming and digital rights for HBO Max. League commissioner Gary Bettman released a statement on the deal:
Turner Sports is known for its outstanding sports coverage, quality and innovation and we are thrilled that this new partnership will provide our fans with the content they love on the platforms and devices of their choice. TNT is a proven and acclaimed destination for sports fans and we will also benefit from the deep connection Bleacher Report has with young digital-savvy fans. Having WarnerMedia join the NHL family as co-rightsholders for the next seven years gives us incredible reach, positions us well for the future as the media landscape continues to evolve, and will fuel continued growth for the NHL and our Clubs.
This means that the NHL is leaving NBC entirely starting next season. The new pair of agreements are expected to nearly triple the broadcast revenue for the NHL, giving it a good start on climbing its way out of the hole dug by the COVID-19 pandemic. That doesn’t mean the cap will rise right away, it is still expected to stay flat for a few more seasons, but it does help plot a path to financial stability for the league and eventually, an increased cap ceiling.
The Stanley Cup Final will be on ABC in 2022, 2024, 2026, and 2028, while Turner will have the rights for 2023, 2025, and 2027.
Anyone know which streaming service this means?
It’s going to be broadcast on TNT and TBS channels, and will also have streaming rights on HBO Max.
NHL.tv with a VPN to pretend that you are in Australia. Seriously, whi cares about the network?
The stupidity of a league commissioner that only sees dollar signs. The NHL is now on two networks that will treat the league as a stepchild to it’s NBA coverage, just as ESPN did when they had the NHL previously, and will now have Stanley Cup finals only on cable TV in alternating years. Brilliant!
While I’m no fan of NBC, the NHL at least had front billing on that network and didn’t have to compete with another league (NBA) who has their season played at the same time.
If some people with money ever thought of starting up a rival league to the NHL, now might be the time to do so.
A new league, yes. We could call it the Hockey Super League.
There are Birmingham Bulls and Houston Aeros jerseys just waiting to come out of the closets? ;)
Coming out of the closet? No wonder they aren’t in the NHL. “Too progressive.”
From what I’ve read it’s a problem with the NHLPA having a ton of debt and they are stretching out addressing it. Until the debt is gone it’s a huge anchor on the league.
The magic of Donald Fehr.
As a cord cutter this breaking up into multiple sources is driving me batty. So hard to find the games and then it seems like the one I want is blacked out or not on my stream package. At leastNBC was easy to find.
its a load of garbage and I honestly don’t know what the consumer can do about it.
its why I still have cable tbh, Center Ice is my savior
Looks like Bettman wants to put a bunch of toll booths to obstruct us in getting access to the games. He apparently doesn’t believe that more and more people are, indeed, cutting cords of the overpriced and overrated TV services (@archboy – I’m with you). Have any of you guys looked around in your yards or neighborhoods? I have yet to see even ONE money tree to pay for much of this junk.
If you cut the cord, you only get like one game a week as it is, assuming you use an hd antenna to get nbc. I fail to see the problem. ESPN carries more games than nbc today, so this change probably won’t have too drastic an impact
@Mac- Love the toll booth analogy! :)
And guess what happenend here in my state of PA when they passed another outrageous rise in toll fees? I stopped using the turnpike.
@Gbear – Thumbs up for that! Excellent choice by you! :)
@I give no fox – NBC includes NBCSN, and the various NBCxx area networks in Philly, D.C., the Bay Area, Chicago, etc. Online access to NHL games would be fine *IF* the incessant screw-up problems of “accidentally” locking people out of games because they are in a blackout area (especially when they aren’t) were fixed. This crap goes back several years when I was thinking about just that solution and seeing how many complaints were out there, with no justice for screwed-over customers.
@Mac – It took NBCSN a number of years to get on basic cable packages, and now that they have, the league jumps ship.
They had NBCSN, CNBC, MSLSD (hehe) and USA network all available to air playoff games. Does anyone think ESPN and TBS will give NHL games priority over the NBA? Welcome to ESPN 3 and ESPN U.
Ohhh…You are referring to paying for nbc cable subscription. I got confused with the cutting the cord part. My fault, apologies for the sidetrack
@Gbear – “MSLSD” – coined by The Great One, himself (not #99 for you guys who don’t know that reference). I’ve always substituted BS (spelled out) for the MS part, myself, but the sentiment is still the same. Everywhere I’ve lived for the past several years has had NBCSN in a second-tier or higher TV package, and access to NHL network was even more stupid-prohibitive. The local crap-cablers wrongly turned NHL network on for a couple of months after they moved a couple of the shopping channels, so I got to enjoy that for a while until they found their mistake. Now, we’ll just have to wait and see how this shakes out…
@I give no fox – All good!
@Mac- The Great One, indeed. ;)
I almost forgot that the Golf channel is also an NBC property and aired playoff games as well. But I look forward to game 7 of the Cup finals being aired on tape delay after Lebron’s press conference is over after an NBA game. :/
@Gbear – You just gave me a flashback to how we had to experience some games in the ’60s – delayed AND on B&W TV! And, after we had read the results in the newspaper! Well, it was better than nothing. Not much, mind you…
I commented on this below, but I think you will be ok. Tnt also shares basketball rights with ESPN for the playoffs. They will probably alternate airing games. Espn does hockey while turner does basketball, and next night they switch. Turner and espn also have a long list of affiliates to air games that’s comparable to nbc. Tbs, tnt, trutv, espn, abc, espn 2, espn news, etc etc
Or….TBS and ESPN did what record labels used to do when they would sign a band or artist for the purpose not of promoting them but to keep them from taking away the spotlight from their featured artists. Time will tell if that’s what happened here, but what better way to diminish your only competition to your prized product (NBA)?
I highly doubt they would spend 3x the previous contract just to suppress it. I think the reality is that the NHL is becoming a more marketable product. From my own experience, I quit hockey after the strike that wiped out a season, but because of covid I found myself watching nhl playoffs last year. The game is vastly different from years passed. There is more action and it’s more exciting. The sport is on the rise and I see it taking over baseball in popularity in the not too distant future.
Well, the TV ratings wouldn’t suggest that the league is catching on with the masses, let alone their own core audience. Likely why NBC didn’t match the offers of the other two networks.
The money seems to be the only focus of the league. This article kind of makes that clear when you consider the schedule the NHL has to work around on their new networks.
link to tsn.ca
1) NBCSN is going out of business at the end of the year, so NBC would have been hamstrung in any case.
2) ESPN and TBS/TNT don’t carry basketball games every night – in fact, they limit competition on the same nights. That’s the plus of having TWO carriers – they can each carve free nights out.
3) ESPN has three primary networks (ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC). Turner uses TNT and TBS, plus has backup options in HLN and TruTV. I think they’ll find a way to televise hockey.
@Mac if you do end up finding a money tree you need to do the right thing and share some of the tree’s seeds with the rest of us.
@ Kje76 – Please read the TSN article. TBS has the NBA on Tuesday and Thursday nights and a very popular wrestling show on Wednesday night. And TNT isn’t all of a sudden jettisoning their regular programming to become a hockey network.
As for ESPN, the article states that the primary channel is only going to air 25 games, so the NHL will be mostly on the secondary ESPN channels.
@Black Ace57 – I did make an *honest* mistake with a bag of said seeds, but realized my error when I saw “David’s” on the label and something about pumpkins. Turns out, there isn’t that much money from planting “Pumpkin Trees”… And, the other one mentioned sunflowers, which reminded me of a poster from the ’70s that had a guy slashing sunflowers with the caption “Ski Kansas”…
:)
That still leaves 4 nights during the week for TBA to broadcast their NHL schedule. It’s not a deal-breaker. The TSN arcticle you mention suggests that Turner will use TNT. Realistically, Turner has 72 regular games – that’s 2-3 a week.
That ESPN 25 game commitment – the NBC schedule for Wednesday Night Hockey in 2019-2020 was 25 games. Figure ESPN does a Game of the Week, akin to Monday Night Football?
I just don’t see a primary Game of the Week on ESPN and secondary games on ESPN2 as a downside, particularly when it’s supplemented by 2-3 games a week on a Turner network.
You’re supposing that TNT will air alot of games on the channel. Maybe, we’ll see, but TNT isn’t going to put NHL games up directly against Basketball on TBS, so the NHL will be second fiddle there.
But as for NBCSN going off air, it really wasn’t as big of a deal as it may seem. They are simply moving their sports programming over to USA Network.
On NBC, every playoff game was aired on some NBC owned channel.
Will each playoff game be aired under this new deal?
And will these games get bumped when the Nuggets-Pelicans game goes to 3OT?
I fear the answers to these are no and yes. If the answers are yes and no, then whatever, I guess.
I wish NBC had just forked over the coin. Their lineup of Nascar and soccer, good luck with that.
ESPN+ has already messed up my Center Ice package… I am getting half games recorded instead of full on those. Its annoying af. I hope they fix it for next season.
I imagine the broadcasts will alternate. Don’t forget, turner has nba playoff rights too. So nights where espn has basketball, turner can do hockey and vice versa.
the fractionalization of television programming is really getting scary everyone has their own service now. here’s too hoping some emails get leaked showing collusion to break up this system. unfortunately its probably very much legal.
@DarkSide830 – Your sentiments are well-founded!
You guys are way too serious about this. It’ll be Barkley and Shaq in the studio before, during, and after the games.
With Kenny and EJ. What could be more enlightening? I can’t wait.