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 Final series.
The team formerly signed a seven-year agreement which produces ESPN its key rights holder beginning next year .
“Despite a great deal of speculation to the contrary, we part friends, every comprehension 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 championship round will broadcast 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.
Included in this bargain, there’ll be livestreaming and also simulcast rights for HBO Max and expansive highlights and digital rights for Bleacher Report.
“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 is not 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 properties like the NHL. “It is something we made apparent 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 also at the past couple of months it increased to another level,” he explained.
Included will be 25 regular-season matches on ESPN or ABC, early-round playoff series and yet another 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 form” but “the way we continue to disperse it and make it’s something we are going to concentrate on.”
Bettman said rights to its World Cup of Hockey, last seen on ESPN at 2016, will be negotiated 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 Olympics 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 head to the Olympics in Beijing [in 2022],” Bettman said.
