Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

Changes in Division I hockey lead to narrowing of TV reach

September 2, 2014, 12:51 PM ET [12 Comments]
Bob Herpen
NCAA Hockey Analyst • RSSArchiveCONTACT
By now, we are well aware of the joke about NBC standing for “Notre Dame Broadcasting Company,” due to the Peacock and the Golden Dome cozying up for exclusive rights to all Fighting Irish home football contests in seeming perpetuity.

This year, however, the tongues may not be planted so firmly in cheek. NBCSN announced its college hockey slate for the upcoming season late last week, and unlike in years past, it features a very distinct Hockey East flair as well as a heavy Notre Dame bent.

In fact, each of the channel’s first four Friday night broadcasts will find the Irish defending their home ice against opponents both inside and outside their home conference.

Notre Dame will appear a whopping 20 times on the network in the regular season alone, beginning October 17 and 18 in a home-and-home set with Lake Superior State. The following week, AHA stalwart Niagara comes to South Bend, and then Vermont invades the Michiana campus on Halloween night before the monotony is broken up by a classic Boston University-Boston College tussle on November 7 from Conte Forum in Chestnut Hill.

BC, by championships the most successful program of the 2000s, will see three games aired, while BU will have two games offered.

Here are the other schools which will make appearances on the NBCSN slate. From Hockey East: New Hampshire (3), UMass Lowell, Providence (2), Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts (1). From outside the premier Division I alliance: national champions Union, RPI, Minnesota, Dartmouth, Western Michigan – all just one appearance each.

Here’s who won’t be seen on NBCSN: Everyone else.

It seems that, in the pursuit of that badly-needed exposure for a niche section of a niche sport, the Peachick is going whole hog with repeating only the most attractive names in the Eastern region of the United States. That’s to be expected when the national network parent with a pro hockey contract and basic cable outlet devoted to the sport forms an alliance with the single-biggest monolithic university which lacked a concrete conference affiliation.

Still, it’s hard to ignore that just within Hockey East neither Merrimack nor Northeastern will be presented, and the defending national champions from the ECAC two years running (Yale, Union) are given exactly one slot, just after the new year (January 3), when interest in college hockey is interrupted by semester breaks, major bowl games and both the NHL and NBA seasons in full swing.

Over the last several years, NBCSN and CBS Sports Network virtually ruled the universe in terms of covering D-I hockey from coast to coast, often monopolizing Friday nights and wearing out your remote controls or picture-in-picture TVs with twin doubleheaders featuring the likes of Maine-UNH, Minnesota-North Dakota, Denver-Colorado College, Michigan-Michigan State, Clarkson-St. Lawrence -- and yes, even a little Robert Morris-Mercyhurst action found its way to the tube. But with the break-up, creation and reorganization of certain conferences last year, the broadcast landscape is changing rapidly.

Hockey East has now officially jumped on the bullet train with its three-year deal to air two-thirds of Notre Dame’s yearly schedule. The Big Ten, though only six programs strong, will benefit from the channel devoted entirely to promoting its athletic vision across all sports for all genders. When you consider that NBCSN and the B10 Network can be found in approximately the same number of homes (just over 50 million), it’s not hard to envision why each network will stick to pimping its own house, so to speak.

CBSSN aligned itself with the National Collegiate Hockey Conference at the start of last season, but judging from last year’s broadcast slate, may not be as NCHC-intensive as the other two outlets are with their respective reach.

Even if you suspend disbelief and subscribe to the reality that major college sports are major business in the 21st Century, it’s not really fair that neither the ECAC, Atlantic Hockey nor the WCHA possess a network deal which can hawk its respective wares as the other three conferences have at their disposal.

I am completely in the tank for my alma mater and its rival on the other end of Commonwealth Avenue, and there are hundreds of others who’d love to see their favorite team or former school featured multiple times on national broadcasts. Nonetheless, to feature one program at the expense of all others on a single channel is tantamount to the tiredness of the Yankees-Red Sox trope ESPN clung to for years during the height of that rivalry in the 2000s.

Contracts be damned, our devoted fans should be exposed to multiple conferences on display in multiple games over the course of a single night on one, maybe two channels, week after week. Not four or five, and dependent upon which cable giant carries however many stations. That seems to be the direction we’re heading, with the haves and have-nots already split into two clear factions.

The increase from 12 to 20 games featuring Notre Dame has handcuffed any diverse programming options for NBCSN for the next couple years. It’s now in the hands of those who steer the Irish hockey program to use this power wisely and craft its non-conference schedule to welcome as many top programs as it can handle.

In the same way, if consumers are being forced to channel surf on any given weekend to properly quench their college hockey thirst, there ought to be the best possible in-and-out-of conference matchups on display. Exposure to the best of the NCAA in the two weeks of the tournament including the Frozen Four just doesn’t cut it anymore.
Join the Discussion: » 12 Comments » Post New Comment
More from Bob Herpen
» Historical perspective about Boston, NCAA finals
» NCAA Regional rundown
» Penn State's Gadowsky nets his coaching hat trick
» Michigan running up scores, but gunning for trouble; Kazmaier Award info
» Men's and women's Beanpot title recap