Dear NHL,
I've written an open letter to you before detailing why I think the exclusive deal with
Making money hand over fist on the NBC and Sportsnet exclusive television deals probably did give you that guaranteed income that allowed you to increase the cap (because no one is going to hockey games anymore, I guess). I only have the American perspective, because I don't want to have to spend hours trying to get around the location based blocking to view videos from Canada, but I know that one of two things has happened:
- You forgot your goal to 'growing the sport' (Mind on yo money?), or
- You just don't care about 'growing the sport' anymore (Money on yo mind?).
I get it, it's nice to have financial security. I don't know what it's like, but I understand it's a nice place to be. But the fact is, you need to either give up on struggling Sun Belt teams and let them be moved to better (or more profitable) markets...or you need to give up this phoney agenda of 'growing the sport.' I don't know what kind of control you have over the broadcasting of games under your deal with NBC-maybe you don't have any, and that's why there's a problem. If that's the case, you reeeeally should have read that contract before signing it. Maybe you did read it, and NBC's lawyers fooled you.
However the fact of the matter is that if you want to see hockey succeed in these markets, if you want to 'grow the sport,' you picked the worst possible TV deal. I don't have cable. I don't think it's worth the cost, and would rather spend that money every month on trying to pay down my own debt. I suspect that much of the rest of middle class America is in a similar boat, and an increasing number of people I know are stopping cable to use cheaper internet services. Being in this situation, i found that, while NBC probably did broadcast every games, I got to see maybe 10. Including NOT ONE SINGLE PENGUINS GAME ALL PLAYOFFS LONG. Not to mention that I've had situations before where the NBC game of the week was pre-empted on TV for a damn TELETHON, thanks to the now-perpetuated belief that I live in a non-hockey market.
I guess the fact that hockey is a rarity on poor-person TV wouldn't be such a big deal if there wasn't so much football or baseball being shown on broadcast television. Maybe you don't care because it's basic cable and you're killing it in the ratings. For people who are either financially secure...or eating one ramen pack a day to feed their hockey addiction.
Its never really been this upsetting for me, and maybe that's because I paid for NHL gamecenter premium for the playoffs this season...only to find those games are not available to watch. And of course my requests to customer service for a refund or even a small discount to another subscription next season were met with crickets.
In the end, NHL, I guess it really doesn't matter. Hockey is a form of entertainment. There was a time when I lived for everything you had to offer me. Maybe....well, maybe for now we should just be friends.
Love always,
Technically Hockey
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