NHL and Versus Should Put Fans First - (Updated)
by Bob Wage on Mar 23, 2009 2:44 AM EDT
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The National Hockey League and Versus have an agreement in place which allows the network full rights to any NHL game scheduled during prime time on Monday nights. (for non Canadian based teams only.) The problem with this agreement is that when there are multiple games scheduled during this time frame, only one can be televised. When that happens, fans of the teams not being picked up are forced into listening to the game either online, or via the old fashioned way, on the radio. Watching the game on television is usually an impossibility, even if you have paid extra for Center Ice.
This scenario has played out several times during the year and hockey fans have griped about the policy all season long. Tonight, the agreement directly affects the Carolina Hurricanes, the Florida Panthers, and their fans. Versus has decided to broadcast the Flyers/Devils game, which leaves the hotly contested game between two teams fighting for their playoff lives, out in the cold.
Here is a paragraph included in the Hurricanes game preview which was recently sent to the media concerning the broadcast of tonight's game:
Broadcast Notes: Due to the NHL’s agreement with national cable television rightsholder Versus, the Hurricanes-at-Panthers game on Monday cannot be televised by either club’s television rightsholder. Fans watching the network’s coverage of New Jersey-at-Philadelphia will be kept up-to-date on the Hurricanes-at-Panthers game by Versus’ Hockey Central crew.
Up until this weekend, the game could not be seen on television. But, according to George Richards of On Frozen Blog, the NHL has lifted the ban and the Panthers are scrambling to show something, at least on Center Ice.
The Panthers just told me that the NHL is lifting the NHL exclusive for Monday's game against the Carolina Hurricanes, although the only place to watch it will be on Center Ice. The team says since neither Fox Florida nor Fox Carolina is picking up the game (too late to do so), the broadcast will be the spartan in-house camera angles with Randy 'Ma! The Meatloaf!' Moller and Billy 'I Beat the Bruins' Lindsay doing the radio simulcast.
Sounds like a second rate operation, but let's face it, it's better than nothing.
But speaking of second rate operations, shouldn't a league competing with other professional leagues try a little harder? Why does Versus need the rights to multiple games scheduled at the same time? This is not like baseball where there might be a rain out and a backup plan is needed. Give Versus the first choice to select any game they want, and then allow the teams not selected to operate as usual. Is that too difficult of a concept to grasp?
In the end it's the same old story. The people getting hurt the most are the one's who have done nothing wrong, the fans.
We will be monitoring the situation closely and will update you with any breaking news about the broadcast for tonight. For the moment, it looks like something will be available on Center Ice.
((UPDATE - 11:40AM))
The Hurricanes are confirming that the game will be on Center Ice. This is from their most recent press release:
RALEIGH, NC—The Carolina Hurricanes’ game tonight at the BankAtlantic Center in Sunrise, FL, against the Florida Panthers will be made available to fans via NHL Center Ice and NHL.com’s GameCenter packages. Center Ice and GameCenter will take the in-arena video feed from BankAtlantic Center coupled with the Panthers’ radio call so that fans can watch this pivotal game in each team’s drive for an Eastern Conference playoff spot. Tonight’s game is scheduled for a 7:30 p.m. face off.
NHL Center Ice subscribers with cable can view the game as Game 5 of tonight’s schedule, which is channel 735 for Time Warner Cable customers in the Triangle area. The game can also be found on Dish Network channel 629 and DirecTV channel 771.
The Hurricanes-at-Panthers game was not scheduled to be telecast by either club’s television rightsholder due to the broadcast window exclusivity rights of the NHL’s national cable rightsholder Versus. Versus will show tonight’s New Jersey-at-Philadelphia match up, as the top two Atlantic Division teams meet for the final time this season at 7 p.m.
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if its on center ice I’ll be happy. This is a big game. of course every game is a big game.
I’m fairly certain it has nothing to do with Versus wanting the rights to multiple games at the same time. They want to create a weekly “Monday Night Football” kind of deal where their game is the only hockey game on televisions in the United States. I kind of like the idea myself, except in situations like this. These situations are fairly rare because usually teams don’t schedule have games scheduled in the Versus exclusive window. So that brings me to my question: Why did the NHL, the Florida Panthers, and the Carolina Hurricanes all agree to have this game on the schedule on this day at this time, knowing full well that it could not be televised?
It didn’t work…. The only way they are going to be able to expand the game is if all the games are on TV…
“Monday Night Football” works for the NFL because all of the other games are televised on Sunday…. So the locals still get to see their home teams play….
Although it’ll probably take another lockout or more teams going broke before the numb skull people at NHL catch on to the fact that they are starving their game by starving their fans…..
by Mateos_Canes_Lamp on Mar 23, 2009 9:48 AM EDT up reply actions
Good point Dale, but as others have said they should not schedule any other games on Monday night then. It only stands to reason that most fans would rather listen to their own team play, than watch other teams on Versus.
GM of CanesCountry.com
although, and i speak from experience.
the longer yo uare a fan, the more luikely you become to watch other games.
-this happened for me with players leaving on trades and FA.
-also obviously the playoff race.
-big stars or big names (like AO or avery) or random people like that.
but id still rather listen to the canes than watch the canoocks “the hottest team in hockey trying to break a 3 game losing streak.”
(which was the opening line to the versys broadcast the other night. what a joke)
how can the hottest team in hockey be trying to break a 3 -game road losing streak.
apparently 4 in a row at home makes you the hottest team in the nhl.
Actually it was an 11-at-home streak
by Andrea's evil twin on Mar 23, 2009 12:37 PM EDT up reply actions
maybe i should just stick with:
it pissed me off when they said that cause i am not a canoucks fan…….
Maybe…
:)
That 11-wins-at-home streak was particularly nice for them because it followed a 9-loss-at-home streak. I think both were franchise records.
by Andrea's evil twin on Mar 23, 2009 4:52 PM EDT up reply actions
Not to mention, if they want an MNF effect, don’t sked any other games. Yeesh.
CanesCountry.com: An Eye On Carolina Hockey
well.. exactly….
well.. exactly….the main reason that Monday Night Football works for the NFL is because it is the ONLY game on the schdule for that day……
well.. exactly….the main reason that Monday Night Football works for the NFL is because it is the ONLY game on the schdule for that day……the NHL is just pissing people off….
by Mateos_Canes_Lamp on Mar 23, 2009 10:43 AM EDT up reply actions
haha….. I’m not exactly sure what happened w/ my post there….
by Mateos_Canes_Lamp on Mar 23, 2009 10:47 AM EDT up reply actions
I am not sure I understand your post so can you repeat it?
by hotchipsnsalsa on Mar 23, 2009 11:19 AM EDT up reply actions
Sure…. What I said was:
well.. exactly….
well.. exactly….the main reason that Monday Night Football works for the NFL is because it is the ONLY game on the schdule for that day……
well.. exactly….the main reason that Monday Night Football works for the NFL is because it is the ONLY game on the schdule for that day……the NHL is just pissing people off….
well.. exactly….the main reason that Monday Night Football works for the NFL is because it is the ONLY game on the schdule for that day……the NHL is just pissing people off….I’m going to be in so much trouble…
by Mateos_Canes_Lamp on Mar 23, 2009 12:31 PM EDT up reply actions
This is a crappy situation, but I tend to give Versus a little lee way. They are a young network trying to build the sport we all love. They had a rough patch at first, but the coverage has been getting much much better. At least they took a chance on the broadcast rights when everyone else practically wanted the NHL to pay them to broadcast it.
Oh yeah, I’ll echo the obvious attempt to make a sort of MNF/HNIC sort of night for Monday/Tuesday, but if that is the case DON"T SCHEDULE OTHER GAMES!
by Iggy Reilly on Mar 23, 2009 11:09 AM EDT up reply actions
Why is everyone responding to me as if I didn’t bring that point up? The last line of my post questions why this game was scheduled during the exclusive window.
my point in bringing it up is … if you’re trying for a “Monday Night Hockey” thing, don’t EVER have other games on the sked.
CanesCountry.com: An Eye On Carolina Hockey
by Cory Lavalette on Mar 23, 2009 11:39 AM EDT up reply actions
Which was the point I was trying to back up whenever I (accidentally) turned the thing into a circus….
by Mateos_Canes_Lamp on Mar 23, 2009 12:32 PM EDT up reply actions
Versus doesn’t schedule the games. The teams and the league do. I have a suspicion; it is complete speculation on my part, though. Neither the Hurricanes or the Panthers have comprehensive television contracts. Both teams have deals in place that do not televise the entire season (for the Hurricanes it is 65 games I believe). When the schedule was being worked out, it turned out that the game was placed on this day. The NHL probably pointed out that they would not be able to televise the game if the game was played on this day, but neither team really cared because they can’t have all their games televised anyway, so they figured this would be one of the untelevised ones.
Pure speculation, but I could see it going down that way.
I think the point is that the leagues policy to give Vs the rights for monday night games…. and by not allowing teams to broadcast games on the nights that VS has the rights to…. They do more damage than good….
by Mateos_Canes_Lamp on Mar 23, 2009 12:34 PM EDT up reply actions
Make no mistake, I am not defending this. My intention was to explain the rationale behind it, not to defend it. Teams need to put their foot down when they are scheduled into these windows. And by teams I basically mean Florida, Carolina, Tampa, and a couple other smaller market teams, because those are the only ones that I can remember ever being scheduled into that window.
Interesting thought, but I’m not sure how much power teams have with the league to schedule, or reschedule games. The way that I understand the process is that each team sends the dates that their arena is available to the league, along with other mitigating factors and special requests, (like no home games during the state fair for instance), and then what you get is what you get.
If teams had more say regarding their scheduling, you would probably see a more balanced schedule, with fewer back-to-backs and less stretches of six games in nine nights.
But who knows, this is a good topic for more research during the offseason. I am going to look into this more.
GM of CanesCountry.com
That could be true, but I think if you look through the schedule you will find that no team with an 82 game television contract has ever had a game scheduled during an exclusive Versus window.
That is certainly true because they would be breaking those contracts to do so. It’s another criteria to feed into the computer during the summer that does the scheduling. But that doesn’t mean that the teams who don’t have full season television rights “don’t care” that they can not broadcast a particular game, especially late in the season.
GM of CanesCountry.com
Versus
65 telecasts for both teams —82 game schedule. This is one of the 17.
Versus btw only has blackouts for certain games (generally Monday). While they’re telecasts are laways excludive in the regular season, on some nights (such as tonight when Versus will show Minnesota-Rangers), other local telecasts are shown — there are 7 other NHL games tonight —all are being shown in at least 1 market.
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