http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/04/nhl-stays-pu t-on-nbcversus-1/1
In a 10-year deal announced Tuesday, NBC and its cable channel Versus will pay about $200 million annually, reports SportsBusiness Daily. In its current deal, Versus pays about $77 million annually while NBC does not pay a rights fee. The new deal will exceed the NHL's previous top TV deal, which came when ESPN paid about $120 million annually to carry NHL games between 1999 and 2004. This season, Versus' NHL games averaged just 0.2% of U.S. households, while NBC averaged 1% of U.S. households. But NBC and Versus, which will be renamed within three months to include NBC in its title, will get some new elements in the deal that will likely improve national ratings by reducing the number of game that are carried at the same time on local TV. Versus will get exclusive rights to about 90 regular-season games -- meaning those games won't also air on local TV -- which will be up from about 50 games this season. And while some first-round playoff games will continue to air on local TV, NBC/Versus will get exclusive rights to playoff games starting with the second round. NBC/Versus will also get online streaming rights to all its games. ESPN had shown interest airing NHL games. Versus gets lower ratings than ESPN and reaches about 20 million fewer households. But Comcast will continue to try to expand Versus' household reach, which might now be successful given Versus can be packaged with various NBC cable channels when sold to cable operators. And if Versus now wants to add more relatively high-profile sports programming, obvious available targets include PAC-12 football and basketball and the Olympics, starting with the 2016 Summer Games. _______________________________________________ Medianews mailing list [email protected] http://lists.etskywarn.net/mailman/listinfo/medianews
