Be it a lucrative new rights deal, an incoming 32nd NHL franchise or the changing tides that come with (hopefully) weathering the final stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NHL seems poised to emerge from one of its toughest trials in league history with plenty of momentum. In the wake of a busy week for the NHL when it comes to inking a mega-deal with the Walt Disney Company, coupled with reflections from NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman on the one-year anniversary of the league shuttering operations due to COVID, let's take a look at what fans should expect from the NHL in 2021-22 and beyond when it comes to viewership, games and season structure.
Get ready for games on ESPN/ABC
By the time we potentially return to semblance of normalcy in the fall, the way we all consume NHL content is going to be very different — due in large part to the seven-year rights deal that the league signed with the Walt Disney Company earlier this week. As a result of this new partnership with the Walt Disney Company (which owns ESPN and ABC) the NHL will see the Stanley Cup Finals broadcasted on ABC four times over the span of that seven year contract.
Other key details from the new rights deal include:
- Those ABC-broadcasted Stanley Cup Finals will be simulcast/megacast on the ESPN+ streaming service and additional ESPN networks.
- 25 exclusive national regular-season games on ABC or ESPN each season.
- 75 national regular-season games per season produced by ESPN that will stream exclusively on both ESPN+ and Hulu.
- Half of the Stanley Cup Playoffs will air on ABC and ESPN each season (ESPN and ABC will have live, exclusive coverage of one Conference Final series and half of all First Round and Second Round games from the Stanley Cup Playoffs).
- ESPN/ABC will also include annual coverage of NHL’s Face-off (opening night games), the NHL All-Star Game and Skills Challenge, plus other NHL special events each season.
- The ESPN+ service not only has the rights to simulcast the Stanley Cup Final, but will also stream more than 1,000 games — replacing the out-of-market streaming package offered by NHL.TV.
- Extensive highlight rights that will incorporate more coverage across ESPN’s year-round news and highlights programming.
- More original programming is expected to be announced in the coming months, including a new weekly studio show during the NHL season on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2.
Jimmy Pitaro
"They have a young demographic here, one of the youngest sports, in fact," Pitaro said of the NHL. "And when you look at ESPN's priorities, one of our top priorities is audience expansion. And that includes attracting this younger demographic. So again we said to the league, the ball is in your court, you let us know when you're ready to have a conversation. But once once we did start to have a meaningful conversation, it happened very quickly."
Set your DVR for
other national
networks as well
What about the flat salary cap?
another
Like it or not, it's time to embrace streaming services
exclusively on both ESPN+ and Hulu
"This reflected the reality of what the media world is looking like now," Bettman said. "Everybody knows that there's cord cutting and everybody knows that the streaming platforms are growing dramatically. And we think at some point, probably relatively early on in this deal, there's going to be a convergence — because of the explosion in the growth and some of the softness with cord cutting. For our fans, this is an opportunity, our younger fans, to give them what they want on the places where they go for content, but equally is important for us is the linear package, and the fact that the playoffs are going to be carried extensively by ESPN, and ABC and the Finals in the years that that this package has for the Walt Disney Company — the Stanley Cup Final, all the games will be on ABC. So for us, this was the best of both worlds."
"The idea is to make the league and the games more accessible to core existing fans, and at the same time to leverage our platforms, including studio, as I mentioned before, to grow the game, to expand it, make it more attractive and use our platforms to showcase NHL stars,"Pitaro said. "We're pretty good at this. And like I said before, we have many employees and many executives over here who are very excited to get going. We've been waiting for this moment, who've been waiting for the opportunity to re-engage and partner again with the league. And so I'm very optimistic in terms of our ability to to help the sport grow, help the league grow, and like I said, provide greater access to fans across our platforms, both linear and digital."
Farewell to regional alignments
Auston Matthews
Connor McDavid
Sidney Crosby
Back to normal?
Farewell to low-capacity outdoor games?
" Lake Tahoe was magnificent," Bettman said. "It was beautiful. We were there. The players I think actually enjoyed making a different kind of road trip. But we did it to have a special event and to have an event where we weren't really jeopardizing the possibility of players being in a situation contracting COVID. We kept things very tight, it was almost close to a mini-bubble. There was regular testing. I had to get tested before I went out there, I was tested every day there, which was pretty typical for everybody.
"And again, we wanted to have a special event for fans some sense of normalcy, but our game — as beautiful as the setting was and the fact that Sunday night's game, I think, the most viewed game on NBC Sports Network, ever. Our game is about the fans. And as interesting, as beautiful as it was, as intriguing as the setting was, I think our focus when we can will go back to having fans at outdoor games in record numbers, which is what we've traditionally done."
Don Sweeney
