NHL whoring out to NBC, no surprise here

It's a joke. Does the winner go to Mystery, Alaska for a taping of Conan with the Cup?

 

People are kind of missing the point here. It's not that NBC is a freeloader. The NHL is desperate to get better exposure, and is in a position where it has to take whatever NBC is willing to give it. It's a reasonable business decision on both sides.

It's not on any level an insult toward Canada. The reality is, Canadians will watch regardless, and the CBC does not have the ratings considerations that NBC does.

 

PC,

If we couldn't whine and bitch about NBC and the NHL, we'd have nothing to do up here between now and Saturday night.

 

Ok, so what percentage healthy are we expecting Lidstrom to be?

As for the back-to-backs in the regular season, I think with the way regular season overtimes/shootouts are handled, and the way playoff overtimes can go, they've tried to avoid back-to-backs if they can.

It's a hypothetical, and I know both teams go through the same thing, but if Saturday's game goes two or three OTs, that could make for a pretty poor game on Sunday. In the SCF, I think you want to allow teams to be as close to their best as you can, which is why they haven't played back-to-back in so long.

 

Any chance the NHL simply accommodated the CBC and Canada with this schedule?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/jim_kelley/05/28/steroids.flames.burns/index.html

"CBC moved a start time last spring because the NHL wanted to showcase Crosby in the U.S., and the word is that this time the CBC made strong mention of who pays the NHL a real rights fee -- a situation that appears to gain some truth from this statement by CBC sports executive Scott Moore who earlier this week told a Vancouver radio station: "We'd like to see (the final) start on Friday or Saturday. NBC is not as flexible as we have been with our prime-time scheduling. It's in nobody's best interests to have a nine-day layoff, so I think it'll get worked out."

"Surprise, surprise, the final starts on Saturday night -- prime time for CBC's Hockey Night in Canada broadcast."

 

Wow, I thought only Mr. Friend O' woulda hauled out a King of Kensington reference. That show was no Trouble With Tracy by the way.

 

The Final matches Detroit against Pittsburgh. If it were, say, Montreal against Calgary, then CBC might have something to talk about. It's not, period.

To change the schedule to accomodate CBC would be like rescheduling the Super Bowl to accomodate the British. Yeah, it starts at like 11:30 p.m. London time. Big deal. I'd rather not get up before dawn to watch the French Open, but the French don't care. I either adjust my schedule to what works for them or tape the darn thing.

I don't see why this is such a big deal. They are actually starting on Saturday night to begin with, which, if I understood, is what CBC wanted all along. OK, so they play back-to-back. The NBA used to do that all the time, final included. It's the same for both teams, so there's no competitive advantage.

I'm not sure what the league can do to make everyone happy. If you put the games on Versus, people complain that some markets don't get the station (just like the old Sportschannel America deal). Put the games on NBC and people complain about start times or whatever. No one ever suggests a better alternative.

It's like the whining about Sunday afternoon games. People whine when the games are day games for NBC. And they whine when NBC skips a week for golf and the games go to Versus at night. Can't win.

 

Are the CBC still broadcasting the Final? Are the CBC paying 100 mill a year? Your god damn right they should have a say in it regardless of who's playing. To say CBC should just stay quiet is complete ignorance. You're failure to grasp this is astonishing.

 

CBC didn't want a Saturday night game? Didn't want a Sunday jnight game?

What did CBC want that they didn't get?

 

Your point was the CBC should have no say because it is 2 American teams. that point is ridiculous. I'm sure CBC wanted a Saturday night start but that is not why it was done.

 

The Saturday Night/Sunday night was because NBC didn't want hockey screwing up with the launch of Conan

No it wouldn't. The two don't compare.

Try and understand this, OK?

CBC paid $100 million in broadcast rights.

NBC pays nada.

In any normal business relationship, you would "accomodate" your largest stakeholder, not cave in to a party who has no financial committment and then acts like they own the show.

 

At least on the surface, there's nothing to indicate that the NHL didn't accommodate their largest stakeholder while at the same time caving in to a party who has no financial "committment" and then acts like they own the show.