Stanley Cup Playoffs: Local and National TV Make for a Full House in the Arenas

As the 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs begin this week, you can expect all of the buildings to be sold out with fans packed to the rafters in each arena. But it won't just be the fans who will be cramming the arenas. With local broadcasters allowed to air telecasts of the playoffs alongside their network counterparts, camera and press box space also becomes an issue.

Here in the United States, NBC Universal will be airing every game live on NBC, NBC Sports Network or CNBC, with the NHL Network handling some of the overflow games. 

With very few exceptions, there will at least three broadcast networks and in most cases four covering the vast majority of the Round 1 playoff series.The only exception is when NBC will be airing their weekend coverage in the U.S. alongside either TSN or CBC, which will be handling the Canadian broadcast duties.   

North of the border, all of the Canadian teams in the playoffs will be seen on either CBC, TSN, TSN2 or French language broadcasters RDS and RDS2. Meanwhile, all of the first-round games being played in Canada will air in the United States on either NBC Sports Network or CNBC. Meanwhile, those same Canadian broadcast networks will travel south to the United States to cover all of the first-round games.

The impact on the the U.S.-based regional sports networks that carry the first-round games from both a ratings as well as sponsorship role will be quite dramatic. So, with that in mind, let's take a look at the regional networks that plan to do their broadcasts in concert with NBCU and the Canadian networks.

 For the Eastern Conference, Root TV has things covered in Pittsburgh. In Washington, it will be Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic and NESN in Boston. MSG along with MSG+ will take care of the New York Rangers and the New York Islanders, respectively.

While out in the Western Conference, Chicago has Comcast SportsNet, Anaheim games will air on Fox Sports West, St. Louis has Fox Sports Midwest, the Los Angeles Kings can be seen on Fox Sports Prime Ticket, San Jose fans have Comcast SportsNet Bay Area, Detroit has Fox Sports Detroit and Minnesota fans will watch the games on Fox Sports North.  

So, how do four networks cover the same game and not get into others way?

According to Bill Bell, who is the coordinating producer for Comcast SportsNet Mid-Atlantic, he explained the process:

"

We will be working with the Madison Square Garden Network, NBC Sports Network and TSN from Canada.       

There will be a production meeting sometime Tuesday either by phone or in person at the Verizon Center. Since there are only so many places that cameras can be placed to get the right coverage angles, there will be feed sharing. It simply means there will [be] designated cameras that will be used by all four networks, thus keeping each network out of the others' way and allowing all of the broadcasters to get the maximum use out of all 25 or more cameras.   

"

This is the second year of a 10-year deal between NBC Universal and the NHL, worth a reported $2 billion dollars. So, when Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs starts, NBCU will have exclusive U.S. broadcast rights all the way to the last game of playoffs.

As the sports media columnist for the Washington Examiner, I receive all of the press releases from the broadcast networks.

Also, all quotes in this story were obtained firsthand in a phone interview with Mr. Bell done last season.