Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Is NBC betting on fans jumping to a new sport?

Can I raise a practical question, at this point? (No, not Stonehenge related...) Is NBC betting against the NFL?

NBC recently signed a big TV deal with the NHL. Reportedly much larger than their older deal, this looks to be worth $200MM per year vs. the $120MM they paid for the rights this year.

This gets into the post I put up the other day, noting that interest may be waning a bit. The question has to be, is NBC actually taking an $80MM bet that interest in the NFL waning could push sports fans over to watching more NHL?

I don't know the economics behind this, nor do I know how ratings have been for the NHL this year. I feel like it may have been growing over the last couple years. The Pitt/Detroit and Chicago/Philly Finals were very good for the sport thanks to those teams being high profile, the Crosby/Ovechkin rivalry has been very good and the Winter Classic has also been very good for their awareness. Hockey does seem to be gaining some traction.

But worthy of a 67% pay raise? I haven't seen anything that makes that look like it's worthy of numbers like those. Which leads me to question if this is more of a speculation play. It could make sense. If fans lose interest in the NFL, they'll move to other sports to fill the void. The NBA is about to face the same thing. Are NFL fans going to migrate toward the calm, cool, sophisticated golf/tennis crowd; or are they more likely to hop over to the violent, crushing, smashing hockey hooligans?

The question answers itself. Whether it is or not, it's interesting to think about.

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