To say the current outlook for local sports broadcast rights is uncertain would be an understatement.
As Main Street Sports Group — owner of the FanDuel Sports Networks that broadcast games for 29 teams across MLB, the NBA, and the NHL — prepares to go out of business after the current NBA and NHL seasons, leagues and teams are scrambling to figure out how to make future local broadcasts available for fans in their markets.
Both MLB and the NBA have seemingly settled on a centralized package of local rights to sell to a streamer like Prime Video or YouTube TV. The idea is that if teams aggregate their local broadcast rights together, and then the league sells those rights to one streamer, they can generate more revenue than if individual teams sold their own local broadcasts, as has been done for decades.
But as it stands, the NHL is planning to allow its teams to decide for themselves what is best for their own local rights situations. Appearing on a recent episode of The Varsity podcast with Puck’s John Ourand, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman suggested that the league won’t centralize its local broadcast rights a la MLB or the NBA, but that the league would be available to support production and distribution of those games if necessary.
“In the short term at least, you’re seeing teams look for local solutions. Some will stay on regional sports channels, a few of them are still viable, some will go to direct streaming like APMC (owner of the Victory+ streaming service), and some are going over-the-air,” Bettman said. “…In those cases, the clubs have been able to replicate the rights to a large extent, and their ratings have dramatically increased. Maybe going over-the-air is a little bit of back-to-the-future.
“In addition, we have developed the capability for our clubs, that any club that needs assistance in distributing games, we have an app, we have production capabilities, and we will assist. The goal with that is to make sure our fans always have access to the games, and the business model is going to have to evolve to take into account the changing environment. …We’re really doing all of the above,” Bettman concluded.
Local rights are just one piece of the equation for the NHL. After this season, the league will have two years left on its national deals with ESPN and TNT. How Bettman decides to approach the league’s next set of national deals is anyone’s guess.
Ourand reported last month that the league has already engaged its current broadcast partners about potentially reaching a deal early, before the NFL’s accelerated negotiations take a lot of money out of the market. But Bettman says the league hasn’t had any formal discussions yet, noting that the NHL could “tuck under” and negotiate early or “wait ’til [the NFL is] done.” Both ESPN and TNT will have exclusive negotiating windows open in the lead up to 2028.
If Gary Bettman made anything clear in his interview with Ourand, it’s that the NHL is keeping its options open on both the local and national media fronts.
