NHL All Star game mid-week bomb

Mention Hardy Astrom's name. Cherry's a delight.

 

Cherry's softened up a lot. He's spending a lot of time talking about Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan and junior hockey players; he's not spending as much time ranting about Ilya from Moscow.

 

If you take the ratings for three successive NHL all-star games plus the ratings for the Olympics gold-medal game and divide by four, I bet the ratings are pretty good.

 

A non-starter.

You take the ratings of three televised middle-school football games and the ratings for the Super Bowl and divide by four, I bet the ratings are pretty good.

 

Bettman's job is safe.

The league should be more concerned about the lack of hockey coverage on Versus than they are letting on. ESPN2 had NHL2Night, ESPNews has a Thursday night segment with Barry Melrose, and ESPN still covers the league on their webiste.

NHL shouldn't bend over and take it from ESPN/Disney but finding a way to eventually get back to the network would be a good thing. Bettman should ask for a game of the week on ESPN, 2-3 per week on ESPN2, NHL2Night production returned, better placement of coverage on Sportscenter, player interviews/stories on ESPNews, and promotions during prime viewing like Monday Night Football.

It is obvious ESPN/Disney wants the NHL back, they've made it clear by having every single paid employee covering the sport rip the coverage on Versus. Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin are superstars with great talent and media savvy, ESPN's access to them and other players would be increased with the new media rules in the CBA.

 

There has been some talk that the NHL will return to ESPN2 next year, including an NHL2Night show.

I think it's been talked about a little on the hockey threads. Nothing is set in stone tho.

 

Which got higher ratings -- the NHL All-Star Game or Quite Frankly ?

 

college softball gets better ratings than either NHL ASG or QF

 

Let's put it this way. For every NHL All-Star Game viewer, there were 55 American Idol viewers.

 

As long as Bettman is asking for things he has no chance of getting, he might as well put $100 million in rights fees on the list, too.

Crosby undoubtedly has talent and he handles media graciously, but is he remotely interesting as a personality? Every time I've seen him, he's giving those 1958 Gordie Howe stock answers.

 

Bettman's delusional fantasies of "growing the sport" throughout the Sun Belt are a huge part of the league's current problems, but they should indeed be trying to "grow the sport" among the northern-tier states where hockey is actually played.

The way to do this is to get games -- SOME games -- on cable systems that are almost universally available, as opposed to OLN/Vs. or whatever you call it, which is NOT almost universally available.

ESPN is not going to dump the NBA or college hoops, the crown jewels of its winter schedules, to make room for the NHL. If the NHL came at it the right way, they MIGHT be able to get a limited schedule on ESPN2 and occasional games on the big station (maybe even a half-dozen games on ABC every season).

How many NHL and NBA franchises are cross-owned? I know there are a few -- New York, Chicago and Toronto, I am pretty sure -- and those are huge markets, so certainly those NBA franchises would be OK with giving the NHL at least token major-cable-network exposure.

But the OLN deal is simply suicidal. It limits the viewing audience to (a small fraction) of the fan base which is already hardcore -- it literally bars the door from casual fans even getting a chance to see the sport. It's not only preaching to the converted -- it's chasing all the agnostics out of the church.

 

My understanding is that the regional broadcasts on Fox do reasonably well.

Starman's bang on. As a business strategy, wholesale expansion into the south has been less than successful and if they want to get some eyeballs back, they have to get off the "Survivorman" network.