On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Paul Murray<[email protected]> wrote: > > In the interest of fairness, I just read the Detroit Free Press > account ... which says pretty much the same thing, with this key > difference: > > "A source familiar with the rights negotiations said the NHL asked NBC > and CBC not to allow the Wings to broadcast the game." > > That figures. If there's anyone more likely to shoot themselves in the > foot than NBC, it's NHL Commissioner Gary Bettmann.
In Pittsburgh, when playoff games were carried on FSN or Versus, the team put up a big video screen outside the arena and encouraged people to come watch the games together. The estimates of crowd size were 4000-6000 for finals games with enough spillover into the streets that the police closed them off to traffic. Local TV news brought crews there to interview fans and some fans came hours early and brought sofas. I never attended, but it had a great party atmosphere and I'm sure it attracted college students and others who are not diehard fans who want to be where the action is. When NBC carries the games, the screen is shut down. In Detroit, as I understand it, away games are broadcast on the screens inside the Joe Louis Arena. Last year, NBC said the team couldn't use the NBC feed, but they had no objection to the team using the CBC feed. This year they objected and there will be no game broadcast. I think this is NBC's doing and not the NHL. The league answers to the team owners before anyone else and if they want to show games on a big screen, Bettman's not going to be the one to object. If NBC has some leverage written into their broadcast agreement, then they would be the ones who don't care what the owners want to do or what it means to the fans. Tom W --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ TV or Not TV .... Smart (TV) People on Ice! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
