2011 NHL Playoffs: The NHL Will Continue to Flounder Until It Returns to ESPN

In the world of sports, there is always something going on. Games are played, players are traded, and championships are won. If you want to know if your favorite NBA, NFL, or MLB team had won the night before, you probably tune into to ESPN.

ESPN is the world wide leader in sports and many avid sports fans start there morning by ritually tuning in to SportsCenter. If you are in a rush and want to read a blurb or two you can usually read the paper on the train to work or use a smart phone app to get your sports news.

However, God forbid you want to get some information on the NHL, unless you are a subscriber to the NHL network, you will be hard pressed to find some actual analysis and hockey talk. The United States has the majority of the teams in the NHL, yet you wouldn’t know that if you picked up a newspaper or if you turned on your radio.

It was a short time ago that the NHL and NBC struck a deal in which NBC/Versus would have exclusive broadcasting rights. In this process Versus would be rebranded as NBC Sports.

Out of all the major networks NBC is the only network that gives the NHL some time. For most of the year NBC has it’s Sunday NBC game of the week. Many viewers have tuned in to watch original six  rivalries like the Chicago Blackhawks vs the Detroit Red Wings and the New York Rangers vs the Boston Bruins. ESPN for the majority only takes notice when something extraordinary happens. 

Why is there such a disparity in coverage for the NHL compared to the rest of the big four sports? The common notion that has circulated even on popular morning sports talk shows is simply people don’t care about hockey. 

The problem is exposure. The NHL once was a partner with ESPN and things seemed good for awhile. There was NHL 2Night which broke down the action of the evening’s hockey. It was a great thing for me personally. I got some no nonsense hockey coverage, highlights, analysis, and much more.However eventually this relationship ended and both parties went their separate ways. ESPN continued to flourish and grow, and the NHL floundered and coverage became squandered.

While it is all good and well that the NHL now has a guaranteed extended contract with NBC/Versus, until the NHL and ESPN rekindle their old love flame, the NHL will continue to suffer in viewership and will grow slowly.

The first issue is the most obvious. Unless you are a hockey fan, a deep sea bass enthusiast, or big game hunter you have no idea what Versus is. Versus is a channel deeply buried in most cable packages. It is wedged between the Outdoors Network and Golf Network on iO Cablevision. Versus isn’t exactly a prime time business opportunity to view and advertise hockey when in order to find it, you need to channel surf into the 400s. 

ESPN on the other hand is wide out in the open. You have ESPN and ESPN 2 on channels 35 and 36, ESPN Classic on 140, and ESPN News on 141. This is the biggest difference. Channel placement and advertisement is key.  If you can’t easily find a channel by just channel surfing, the outsider attempting to look in won’t put in that effort for hockey.

Like I mentioned earlier the Versus’ brand is not defined. While ESPN covers the major sports and news associated with the sports, Versus has a smorgasbord of programing. How can the NHL emerge on a network with such a cocktail of different programs? Simply put, It can’t. The NHL needs a place where it can sow its wild oats to grow and express itself. It needs ESPN.

ESPN devotes slots of time to each respective major sports. On any given night you can have a game of the week, a Baseball Tonight, or even a college football game live. By devoting this time to the respective sport, ESPN provides an outlet to build up anticipation for big match ups and rivalries. This doesn’t happen with the NHL on a national level.

Regionally in the New York area, the Rangers have MSG network which hosts games, vignettes, classic games, multi weekly games and a weekly analysis program. Hockey Night Live is held every Saturday night and usually follows Rangers postgame. This is a good program that predominately focuses on the tristate area teams consisting of the Rangers, Devils, Islanders, and some Sabres as well.

The show also devotes ample time to the other happenings of the NHL as well. It has in depth breakdown by former players like Ken Daneyko, Butch Gorin, Pat Lafontaine, Dave Maloney, Brian Leetch, Ron Dugay, and MSG host Al Trautwig. It truly is one of the highlights of the hockey week for me during the regular season. 

The problem herein lies that hockey is a regional game and not national. It is not national because of the lack of coverage. If it were given some legitimate and consistent coverage, anticipation could be built up and the NHL would have a chance to grow. On Versus or NBC sports the game will not grow.

Canada does not have this problem. TSN, which ESPN owns a minority share of, has good coverage for NHL games. They have everything a hockey fan would wan’t. Canada is where hockey is most celebrated therefore it take top billing over other sports unlike hockey coverage in the United States

The difference between NBC and ESPN is that ESPN’s focus is sports. NBC’s focus is news and entertainment. Yes even though Disney is the owner of ESPN and ABC, ESPN operates as if it were it’s own entity. NBC has to focus with it’s ratings and making sure it packs a big Thursday lineup. Hockey just won't get sandwiched in front of 30 Rock or The Office.  It really isn’t fair to give to one and not another and in this scenario, the NHL is being cheated out of what it rightly deserves.

That also brings up the final issue. The NHL would gain major exposure from a primetime game of the week. While many enjoy the Sunday game of the week, it isn’t exactly primetime. NBC has its sitcoms and comedies that hold major primetime time slots. They can’t simply swap and swoop.

ESPN has a little more wiggle room because they usually prioritize given the significance of the sporting event. If the NHL was having a major playoff game like the Detroit Red Wings versus the San Jose Sharks, ESPN would put that on primetime and ratings would be high. Due to the NHL and NBA sharing a lot of arenas, most playoff games don’t overlap. 

In short, the  NHL will always have their loyal fans who eat, sleep,breath, and bleed  hockey. The fans will continue to tune in when games are broadcasted but in order to ordain and induct new members into this experience the NHL must return home to ESPN sometime in the near future. Until that day the NHL will flounder until it returns to ESPN.

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