NHL on Turner Sports: What the $1.57 billion deal means for the league, viewers and broadcasters

BOSTON, MA - JUNE 12: Retired basketball player Charles Barkley poses for a photo with the Commissioner of the NHL Gary Bettman during the game of the Boston Bruins against the St. Louis Blues in Game Seven of the Stanley Cup Final during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at the TD Garden on June 12, 2019 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Steve Babineau/NHLI via Getty Images)
By Sean Shapiro
Apr 27, 2021

A week ago, Turner Sports wasn’t even considered a dark horse in the race for the NHL’s national TV B package. Now it’s going to be an NHL fixture for at least the next seven seasons.

Starting with the 2021-22 season, Turner Sports will act as the second national partner for the league after ESPN, airing national games during the regular season and showing the Stanley Cup Final for three of those seven seasons. According to sources, the deal will net the NHL around $225 million annually, a total value of more than $1.57 billion over the life of the deal.

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An NHL board of governors meeting was held Monday afternoon to share the details of the deal with teams. A formal announcement is expected this week, likely on Tuesday.

Games will be televised primarily on TNT, including the Stanley Cup Final games. TBS will also be able to carry games while HBO Max will be included in the deal in some capacity, according to multiple sources.

NBC was long considered the favorite to land the B package, even after NBC passed on the A package and ESPN hammered out a seven-year deal with the NHL worth $2.8 billion.

That was still believed to be the case last week until Turner started making a heavy push to get the rights, according to industry sources. NBC remained interested, according to sources, and it became a question of cost rather than the desire for the network to maintain a partnership with the NHL.

NBC, according to the Sports Business Journal, submitted a bid of under $100 million annually for the B package rights.

NBC has been the NHL’s sole national rights holder in the United States since 2004, and its 10-year contract worth $2 billion is coming to an end. NBC’s partnership with the NHL was crucial for the league coming out of the lockout; for example, the creation of the Winter Classic, the league’s marquee regular-season event and annually its best-viewed game outside of the Stanley Cup Final.

That NBC was out of the bidding, first reported by the Sports Business Journal, came as a surprise to a couple of industry sources and to many in the broadcasting community, where there will now be a major reshuffling of on-air talent.

Turner’s arrival as the rights holder is also turning heads. It was believed that if NBC didn’t land the B package, Fox likely would have. Fox was interested, but not at the price point Turner eventually reached. There was also a report this past weekend from Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston that Apple had shown some interest in acquiring parts of the NHL rights package.

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According to sources, Apple and Amazon both presented interest in being a partial streaming partner, but Turner wasn’t interested in sharing the B package, particularly with the ability to handle its own streaming on HBO Max.

What does this mean for viewers?

This is the most important question since it applies directly to you, the hockey consumer.

In four of the next seven years ESPN, and likely ABC, will televise the Stanley Cup Final. Turner will have it in alternating years. The pre-Stanley Cup Final setup will be similar to the NBA’s current playoff structure with Turner and ESPN splitting the first two rounds and each airing a conference final series.

The biggest difference between the NHL and NBA setup is that Turner gets the championship series every other year. When Turner carries the Stanley Cup Final, it will be cable only, which is a deviation from the NBC arrangement where the majority of games would be over the air on the flagship station. It will be the first major men’s sport in North America to have its championship exclusively on cable.

During the regular season, ESPN and TNT are both expected to have fixed nights for national television games. TNT will get the Winter Classic, which had been an NBC staple on Jan. 1.

What does this mean for on-air talent?

Most, if not all, of the broadcasters, working hockey on NBC have contracts that expire at the end of the 2020-21 season. The big names like Kenny Albert, expected to do the Stanley Cup Final this year on NBC, and John Forslund will become national TV free agents and will likely be approached by both ESPN and TNT to call games.

While ESPN already has some hockey talent in-house, both networks are essentially building new teams to present the sport. ESPN is believed to be taking some major swings soon by going after bigger-name analysts, and potential Hockey Hall of Famers, similar to how NBA broadcasts feature former marquee players.

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What does this mean for the NHL?

Moving from one national carrier to two in the United States was always going to be key for the NHL, and now it’s official with Turner and ESPN in the fold for the next seven years. The NHL wants and claims to be a top-four sport in the United States; in order to be a top-four sport, you have to act like one, and that includes maximizing television partnerships.

Financially, the deals will net the NHL $645 million on average per season. That’s more than double the $300 million the NHL was netting on average with the last NBC deal and with Disney Streaming Services for the out-of-market package. That’s incredibly important as the league is dealing with the long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we reported when ESPN signed on with the A package, this isn’t going to affect the flat salary cap, and while a flashy TV deal is important, it’s not going to offset the escrow debt players owe the league anytime soon.

For NHL commissioner Gary Bettman, this is a win and a draw of sorts. He was able to secure two national TV deals but was unable to meet his intended goal of netting $750 million per season, the number he gave the board of governors before the pandemic.

(Photo of Charles Barkley, Gary Bettman: Steve Babineau / NHLI via Getty Images)

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