The NHL and Turner Sports have attained a seven-year rights arrangement starting from the 2021-22 year that comprises the Winter Classic and three Stanley Cup Finals.
The team formerly signed a seven-year agreement which makes ESPN its key rights holder beginning next season.
“Despite a great deal of speculation to the contrary, we part friends, all knowing why we left the decisions which we made to achieve this stage,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said of NBC Sports.
Turner Sports will show around 72 regular-season matches and half of those initial three Stanley Cup Playoff rounds every season. The Stanley Cup Final will broadcast on TNT at the past few years where Turner Sports conveys it, signaling the first time that the tournament round will air only on cable. The Stanley Cup Final will look on ABC at the past few years where ESPN airs it.
Turner Sports also includes a part of the rights to the NCAA men’s basketball championship.
“We now have the capacity to place games there, however, the initial focus will be on the Turner networks,” Zucker said of HBO Max, including that”since the customers continue to skate where the puck is, we’ll be there. Nonetheless, it is not imminent and it isn’t likely to happen this season.”
Turner Sports will possess”TV Everywhere” rights which will enable its own networks to produce NHL games and related programming accessible to”authenticated readers across all WarnerMedia platforms”
Zucker stated that Turner Sports was constantly interested in obtaining the rights to premium sports possessions such as the NHL. “It is something we left evident to the NHL during the past year or so. In terms of if we became far more serious about it, we have had ongoing conversations throughout the past several months and at the past couple of months it increased to another level,” he explained.
ESPN and the NHL declared a seven-year agreement in March, returning baseball to ESPN for the first time since 2004. Included will be 25 regular-season matches on ESPN or ABC, early-round playoff series and a single convention final annually, four Stanley Cup Final show on ABC and over 1,000 games per season flowing on ESPN+. ESPN+ and Hulu will likely be home to 75 ESPN-produced exclusive telecasts each season. The deal also has opening-night games, the NHL All-Star Game and abilities Challenge and other exceptional events.
In terms of NHL Network,” Bettman stated that the team imagines continuing the hockey channel”in some sort,” but “the way we continue to disperse it and make it’s something we are going to concentrate on.”
Bettman stated rights for its World Cup of Hockey, last seen on ESPN at 2016, will probably be negotiating with networking partners once the league and the NHLPA collectively opt to proceed with another edition.
The commissioner also stated that severing ties with NBC would not have an influence on the league’s Winter Olympic future. The team and its players together bargained to take part in the subsequent two Winter Games, each of which is aired on NBC networks.
“There are still a great deal of items that don’t have anything to do with NBC which will need to be solved before we go into the Olympics in Beijing [in 2022],” Bettman said.
