From: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.hockey
Subject: Re: TV CONTRACTS IN THE USA
Date: 9 Apr 92 17:23:02 GMT
Reply-To: gld@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Gary L Dare)
Organization: Curious Goods (formerly Louis Vendredi Antiques)

John_Carson@mindlink.bc.ca (John Carson) writes:

>I have been veiwing hockey on TV for years and I am under the
>impression that the NHL is trying to sign one deal and only one deal
>to promote hockey in the USA. Would it not be better to sign contracts
>with INDEPENDENT stations or network stations that have an audience
>locally.

Negotiations for this year's US TV deal went right to the afternoon of
Opening Day. (-; ESPN offered a Game-of-the-Week for some of the first
half, most of the second half, and some of the playoffs.  This offer
came with the condition that local blackouts would be lifted.  Local
coverage generates a lot of revenue, however, and Paramount soaks most
of the metro New York cable market with their MSG basic channel (Prime
Ticket in Southern California is the same way).  Like it or not, I've
paid for the Rangers, Knicks and Yankees through their MSG saturation
coverage ... anyways, why jealously guard these broadcasts?

U.S. teams usually have one broadcast crew attached to the franchise
and they are used for games on pay cable, basic cable, and/or over-
the-air (the Flyers cover all three aspects; others, usually a cable
operation plus some games farmed to over-the-air).  Outside of metro
New York (Rangers, Devils, Islanders), most teams have an on-air deal
to show some road games.  Usually owners have an investment in all of
these media outlets (it's the same in Winnipeg, where the Shenkarow
crew and Asper's CanWest folks in CKY have money in each other), and
jealously guard their rights to the point of not showing OTHER games
from their partners in SportsChannel (if they are part of that 7 team
consortium) because of local rights to other sports (e.g., White Sox
repeats of afternoon games on SC Chicago that block out NHL playoffs
from other cities -- readers from last year can repeat their horror
stories from these preemptions).  In other words, I've got all the
marbles and you can't play with them.  Nyeah!

SCA has been selling their hockey package around, with some areas not
in the SC sphere getting games such as SportsSouth (Turner), Prime
affiliates like KBL (Pittsburgh) and a couple out west, etc.  However,
I've not heard of any on-air stations picking these games up (nor if
SCA tried to sell to them) but considering that there are many other
cable sports regionals that have not bought, I'd not expect the
formation of a US NHL Network (a la CFN for CFL) to be any more
successful.  Also remember that such a network must show games live,
not as filler like some regionals may do (I'm told that John McMullen
shows his Devils on Houston Sports, but these games are tape-delayed
into the night often ... not that you'll find the score in advance,
anyways! (-;).  Because of the highly regional nature of cable where
nation-wide entities like ESPN are exceptional and exist by the grace
of seniority, a truly national US TV contract may remain elusive.

gld
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Je me souviens ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gary L. Dare				U.S. Elections 1992, Vote Now:
> gld@cunixB.cc.columbia.EDU		a) Elvis 50's stamp, or
> gld@cunixc.BITNET			b) Elvis 70's stamp?