The NHL's move from NBC Sports to ESPN and TNT seems to have been an incredibly smart decision. At the time the television contract was up in the United States, TV rights essentially became a bidding war. The NHL was obviously going to accept the most lucrative deal.
ESPN won that bidding war, and was the new primary rights holder in the US. In an unexpected turn of events, TNT was also accepted as a secondary rights holder to help cover games as well. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman commented on the new deal saying,
"With my tongue in my cheek, I've said a number of times that if ESPN is half as good at promoting us as they were at freezing us out when they didn't have our rights, this is going to be great."
I think, for once, fans can agree with Bettman. Ratings in the playoffs have been through the roof in the first round. The first round cable ratings in the US were up 43% averaging 725,000 viewers across 26 games. Most notably, Game 7 between the Boston Bruins and Carolina Hurricanes was up 112% and Game 7 between the Dallas Stars and Calgary Flames was up 99%.
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ESPN and TNT seem to be taking a different approach than NBC Sports. Both platforms offer key personalities and former players. They are more free to voice their opinions and have a little fun:
It's unclear if this ratings hike will continue deeper and deeper into the playoffs. Apparently, the Florida Panthers asked the league to play on a different night than their NBA counterpart, the Miami heat.
Furthermore, the Panthers and Lightning need to adjust to a somewhat odd scheduling issue in the playoffs. Tampa Bay's home arena is not available Saturday night due to a Kane Brown concert, forcing the teams to play Game 3 Sunday afternoon. Usually, games are played every other night. WIth this conflict, the teams will now get two nights off before Game 3 and play Game and 4 back to back (Sunday and Monday in Tampa).
The solution seems a little bit obvious... have the teams switch with the other Eastern matchups for days they would play. This would have appeased the Panthers request to play on a different night than the Heat and would have kept the games to every other night.
Apparently, ESPN gets to choose which series they cover and which series is left for TNT to cover in the playoffs. ESPN chose to cover the New York/ Carolina series. The big exception is with arena scheduling conflicts or "extenuating factors." Essentially, the NHL makes the schedule, not ESPN.
With this scheduling decision, the Battle of Florida will go head to head against the Heat's Eastern Conference Final matchup with the Boston Celtics. In the States, the NBA typically takes viewership away from the NHL when such conflicts arise. At the end of the second round, we will see if viewership numbers and ratings continue to increase, or if the NBA will take some hard-gained market share away from the NHL once again.
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