Topper wrote:Some thoughts and comments a day later.
McLean says HNIC hasn't been a CBC production for several years. Rogers will assume production and GIVE the games to CBC. CBC gets some advertising slots to push out their latest ice dancing reality show.
On air, TSN will still be a sports reporting and analysis station. The guys on TSN Hockey and Sports Centre won't see much of a reduction. It will be the local TV production crews and the play by play/colour guys who do the games that will suffer. There is already a redundancy of these folks with CBC and Sports Net so figure on 2/3rds of the national pool of play by play/colour commentators and the TV production crews will be on the street looking for work flipping burgers.
Don Cherry will be 80 in February. I suspect Rogers lets nature take its course.
Apparently TSN's ceiling was around $40 million annually, similar to what they currently pay for the package they have.
Rogers' deal is more than ten times that, cue Carl Sagan - "billion and billions" for a monopoly on Canadian NHL broadcast rights across all platforms. It starts at $300 million the first year and escalates to over $500 million annually........and you still don't think more ppv is coming your way......LOL.
Rogers is already talking of a Centre Ice Lite.
The phrase "across all platforms" is intriguing. Ten years ago, only a few were watching games in high def, no one was watching on broadband......twelve years from now?
The deal goes beyond the terms of the current CBA so I suspect there is a claw back in case of another labour dispute. There is also no doubt that this deal would not have happened, given the acrimonious NHL/NHLPA history, without a ten year CBA.
The deal is $3.2 billion more than what Comcast (hello Mr. Snyder and the Philadelphia Flyers) paid for the ten year US rights.
The next MLSE board meeting will be a hoot.
I thought the comments coming from Rogers were interesting. This deal gives them full control over Centre Ice. And as you mention they are talking about the ability to bundle a series of games for 5-6 dollars a month as opposed to having to buy the full Centre Ice deal. I think we will see some varied options.
They talk about the ability to choose between 8-10 games, as an example, on a Saturday night. Of course they add that this depends upon which broadcast signals you get or what platforms you use. So it's not like we will get to scroll through a list of options, without paying extra, to watch a game that may interest us.
I imagine a lot will be free at first to hook people in. They also talk about a lot of off ice programming that will be developed. To me we have enough of these pundits already on the air. Not sure how many more I can take.
They also currently hold the regional rights to the Canucks, the Alberta teams and some Leaf games. They indicated that the national broadcast rights will not alter the regional plans. I take that to mean that living n BC we should still get all the Canuck games as we do now.
I don't trust Rogers. Never have and never will. From one perspective though this should see the cap go up.