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The NHL chimed in on Bally sports case last week. They are asking ahead of time for potential financial “relief… and potentially legal termination of the broadcast agreement. I am grateful that we’ve been talking about this now, more than ever.
For a good chunk of this year, I’ve covered Bally and ESPN problems. Some of you have been interested, some have said they are done reading about it. The point has been, where do we watch hockey if the main and secondary networks can’t present them. The response is, just watch center ice or vpn the stream. Here’s the issue. Center ice is a rebroadcast, just like national news is rebroadcast by small affiliates. You have to have a provider creating the stream and Detroit is 1 of 12 teams that may lose their primary partner.
Bally was Fox Sports, most of you know that. Ironically, Disney (who owns ESPN) bought Fox Sports and owned it all. They sold 19 markets to Bally who is in bankruptcy for almost the exact amount of the sale. If Detroit and others haven’t been working on plan B this summer, that’s not good. Arizona hasn’t, and now the team may be moving to Utah for a myriad of reasons. One of which may be that the team just requested a 2 billion dollar district/arena which would be their 3rd or 4th since the franchise was created. Phoenix and Gila Arena (which may still be unpaid for) both for sure (and currently a university rink with 5k max attendance).
This has been coming. From the time I started digging through every update the pattern showed Bally losing team after team as the MLB needed stability. The NBA wants stability and teams have filed for separation. The NHL now needs stability. Even if they get a settlement in dollars, if 12 teams lose their broadcaster in September (trial has been extended to September 30th) that is not good.
The next biggest provider is ESPN who have had 3 rounds of layoffs and multiple employees leave with one recently winning a multi million dollar settlement. Now the parent company is being sued for hundreds of millions if not billions due to potential accounting fraud. Oh crud. So who is left? NBC/Universal/Comcast are pushing content to Peacock. ESPN is inevitably (according to the last call) being sent to streaming. YoutubeTV has NFL Sunday ticket now and that could crush the company (who is trying to turn into a streaming brand).
None of this is fun, none of this is enjoyable to cover. I covered it because I love hockey but it is outperformed by the NFL, NBA, NASCAR and golf. Currently, the WNBA is near halfway in ratings (about 300k per game) to the NHLs 700-750k per game. The sport is having issues and I want you to be ahead of the game. Bettman seems to intentionally try to smooth things over. Last year in January, the cap could go up 5 to 7 million. It went up 1. Guess what? The cap could go up 5 to 7 million again. If players pay 10 to 20% escrow why would they sign off on that? Your contract is immediately worth up to 1/5th less than you sign for. Those announcements are made in hopes of attracting revenue and sponsors similar to corporate releases hoping for the stock market to react well.
Just please keep your eyes open. There is increased pressure for Disney to get rid of studios and IPs and get profitable. If YoutubeTV or Apple throw “overpay… into the mix, it’s streaming TV across the board. Regional Sports Networks are having the same trouble as any non giant. ESPN partnering with PENN sports betting could chase off other betting services as guess who will get the majority of the attention?
To broadcast, you have to get licensed by the FCC and have the entire infrastructure to record and transmit. I think NBC/Comcast would be a decent partner even with the Peacock app. I’d prefer that to apple or YoutubeTV just in terms of having a network with experience in sports. In terms of money, however, Apple would be a great infusion. They could easily pay 1 billion for broadcast rights and cover 1/5th of the 5 billion dollar goal for HRR. It would also be easy to sync TV/Phone/Tablet via app.
The final question will be, who will be on the broadcast team? My hope is that teams can hold on to their current group. There are now 42 days to get this finalized based on the current extension. That seems like a lot of time, but it’s cutting things very close. Detroit needs stable broadcasting. The arena sits just over 18k, and even though it’s lower, 700k viewing draws the ad dollars. Let’s see where this ends up.