No More NHL On NBC

If you think about it, all the signs were there that NBC wasn't renewing its hockey contract.  They didn't announce a replacement when Doc Emrick retired.  Now it makes sense why.  They announced that they were shutting down NBCSN at the end of the year.  Would they have done that if they were planning on keeping the NHL?  The answer is almost certainly "No."

So we really shouldn't have been surprised, then, that the NHL announced the second half of its new TV deal would go to Turner.  As it turns out, NBC wasn't even a serious bidder.  They did the NHL a favor by putting in a token bid to drive the price tag up, but both sides knew it wasn't a serious offer.  The cost of its new NFL deal, combined with what it pays for the Olympics and Premier League, probably put keeping the NHL out of NBC's price range, especially since, either way, they weren't gonna be the exclusive rights-holder any longer.

It'll definitely be weird to not see the NHL on NBC next season.  They've been the exclusive rights-holder for 15 years, and their coverage is outstanding!  ESPN, of course, has history with the NHL, but that was a long time ago (before Lockout 1.0), and TNT has no experience with hockey to speak of.  But hockey fans' expectations of both will be high, which is 100 percent because of the quality of NBC's production.

Of course, this won't be the first time that ESPN and TNT are working together.  They've shared the NBA rights for years.  That I think will actually make things a little easier for both networks.  Because they'll be able to schedule around each other and work to make sure there aren't any major conflicts.

Since the Turner portion of the deal was announced, a lot of the conversation has centered around what night each network will dedicate to the NHL.  TNT's NBA days are Tuesday and Thursday, and they have wrestling on Wednesday nights.  ESPN's big NBA night, meanwhile, is Fridays, and they also have games on Monday and Wednesday nights, as well as ABC games on the weekend (as I've said numerous times before, ESPN is pretty obsessed with the NBA).

ESPN also has its college basketball nights to consider, too.  There's no way they touch Big Monday, and I doubt they'd touch their Tuesday night college basketball doubleheader, either.  They also have their marquee college basketball game on Saturday nights, but they also do a lot of Saturday night NBA games on ABC, so it's unlikely they would consider Saturdays for the NHL anyway.

They also have significantly fewer games on linear TV, which was likely intentional.  I just hope it means the NHL doesn't get lost in the shuffle, which seems like a real possibility with all of ESPN's other properties.  They could take a page out of NBC's book and have a weekly Sunday afternoon game on ABC, although that would cut into their Sunday NBA doubleheaders.  Maybe one game from each league is the solution?  Or they go with more Saturday nights for the NBA?

A weekend game is important, but I'd also think ESPN would want to establish its own Game of the Week on a weeknight.  And Thursdays seem to make sense.  They've had a weekly Thursday night college football game for years, so it would be easy to simply switch that to a weekly Thursday night NHL game once college football season is over.

My guess is that TNT's big NHL night will be Mondays.  They'll have the Winter Classic (I wasn't sure how ESPN would fit it in with all 35 of their New Year's Day bowl games, so I'm glad it'll be on TNT), and that seems like a natural starting point for a weekly doubleheader.  I also think it would be smart to keep NBCSN's Wednesday night rivalry games.  If that means they have to move wrestling to Fridays, so be it!

I also hope that TNT develops an NHL version of "Inside the NBA," which might be the best show on the network!  An "Inside the NHL" obviously wouldn't have the star-power of a Shaq and Charles Barkley behind it, but I think it'd be important to show their commitment to the NHL.  They'd be smart to hire some of NBC's hockey talent to give themselves credibility with hockey fans, too.

That's perhaps the biggest issue facing Turner as it takes over half of the NHL package.  ESPN has plenty of hockey people among its stable of announcers.  Turner has none!  So why not grab Kenny Albert and Pierre McGuire?  I wouldn't be surprised if they make a push for Eddie Olczyk, either!  Or how about Ray Ferraro?  They'd be fools not to go after AJ Mleczko, too!  And, I don't know the details of Liam McHugh and Kathryn Tappen's NBC contracts, but landing one of them as the host for "Inside the NHL" would be an incredible get!

Splitting the Stanley Cup Playoffs should actually be the easiest part of the whole deal.  For both networks.  They can simply alternate nights.  Whichever doesn't have the NBA on a given night will have the NHL and vice versa.  And their NBA model of alternating which conference finals each network covers seems to work well, so mirroring that in the NHL would make sense.  (It would also make sense for one to carry both Easts and the other both Wests to guarantee no arena conflicts.)

All of those details still need to be hammered out, and I'm sure they will be.  My big concern about the NHL's new TV deal, though, is that they'll end up playing second fiddle to the NBA.  TNT has covered the NBA for years and it's no secret how much ESPN loves the NBA.  So they'll still clearly be the priority on both networks.  With NBC, that wasn't the case.  NBC wasn't just the NHL's exclusive rights-holder, they really didn't have anything else going on during hockey season, which I think is part of what made their coverage so good.

NBC and the NHL will be "mutually going their separate ways as friends," suggesting the contract had simply run its course after 15 years.  What a wonderful 15 years they've been though!  ESPN and TNT will sure have a lot to live up to over the next seven years.