Take away my nostalgia for a themed song that probably not one of ESPN’s big money people who spent years on the air without mentioning the NHL could identify even if LeBron James and Tom Brady hummed. -a.
Don’t tell me how much the NHL will benefit from TV exposure of its games on one or another of the Disney platforms, streaming or otherwise. Here’s what I’ve always wanted to know: What would an adult outside of Bristol, Conn., Ever have to refer to a television network as a “mother ship” or “world leader?”
There is one thing and one thing of importance attached to the NHL media rights agreement with Disney, ESPN and affiliate brands that includes the Hulu streaming service, namely money.
This is Slap Shots ‘Rod Tidwell moment: Show me the money and tell me how soon his introduction to the league’s revenue will be able to wipe out the NHL Players’ Escrow debt, which threatens to strangle the league beyond the expiration of the current collective bargaining agreement. collective. .
That matters.
The salary cap, according to the agreement reached last summer, cannot increase by more than $ 1 million per season until the escrow debt is paid. Beyond that, if a certain amount of collateral debt remains on the register in 2024-25, the parties should come up with a formula whereby the PA would fully repay the league after the 2025-26 expiration of the CBA. Isn’t that going to be fun? Children who are currently 13 years old and play Bantam hockey would end up paying for it.
The deal with ESPN is believed to be worth about $ 420 million a year. A secondary package to be negotiated or completed with a second media rights partner is expected to be around $ 200 million per. That’s obviously a substantial increase over $ 200 million in total that the NHL receives under its current deal with NBC, but it’s probably not the Grand Slam action – OK, a natural hat trick – the league could have imagined before the pandemic hit.
Escrow debt at the end of this season is likely to be about $ 900 million. If players simply return half of the money they received for the TV, that is, around $ 310 million on? So it would take three years in cash for media rights to offset the current debt.
Except that the debt will almost certainly increase due to the annual exceedance of the salary guarantee. It is not yet said what the protocols for next season might entail and whether full halls will be allowed in the entire league. But even if the league’s revenues will return to the value of 5 billion dollars that was projected for a year completed 2019-2020, the withholdings under guarantee were 14%.
After securing next season, it will be capped at 16 to 18 percent, capped at 10 percent in 2022-23 and six percent in the next three years of the agreement. So unless the NHL generates additional revenue generation initiatives, there will be spills every season and where and when it will stop, no one really knows.
Maybe the NHL will flourish with ESPN exposure, maybe the network will direct other properties to its Plus streaming site, and hockey will reap additional benefits. But this deal was just about money. The NHL will only be indebted to ESPN if this transaction is able to cover PA’s debt.
Not so much this season, when everything went wrong in Buffalo, but even when Taylor Hall held her Hart Trophy season in New Jersey 14 years ago (What’s that? It was only three years ago?), They were people all along the league talking about how the wing was an “I” type in a “new” sport.
So would the Islanders, the Ultimate We team led by Ultimate We Guys, Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz, dare to try to bring Hall into the mix as a lease at the end of the trade, if Anders Lee’s injury is as serious as it might seem?
Here’s the rule about Lamoriello: There are no rules.
When you think you know what he’s going to do, you don’t know.
True, ESPN includes a cadre of professionals who will surely treat hockey with loving care, although it is inevitable that the network will do its best to drive the sport crazy, as it does regularly with most of its other properties.
If there’s a petition that needs signatures to get Gary Thorne on the list of people playing games next season, you can add mine electronically right now.
Instantly, about halfway home. Elite Opt: 1. Insular; 2. Gulf of Tampa; 3. Toronto; 4. Carolina; 5. Vegas; 6. Washington; 7. Florida; 8. Pittsburgh.
In the middle of the season, the biggest disappointments: 1. Dallas; 2. Colorado; 3. Columbus; 4. Nashville.
In the middle of the season, the biggest surprises: 1. Chicago; 2. Winnipeg; 3. Los Angeles; 4. Florida.
Who wants to bet that the seven-game suspension imposed on Tom Wilson for his cheap shot that convicted Brandon Carlo came through the kindness of a Sixth Avenue as exasperated as we all are by the inclination of the Department of Player Safety to fight fine print for to allow recidivist hunters to become scot-free?
Do you realize, don’t you, that through Friday’s games, seven of the NHL’s top 13 scorers were born in the United States, with three from Canada?
Who matched 36-year-old Dustin Brown in seventh place in the league with 13 to Friday?
Better question: who, even a few seasons ago, still had Brown as king at 36?
In the league, maybe?
Is there more separation between the first and second overalls in 2015, Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, or between Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine in 2016?
Finally, this quick test: Is Laine the new Marian Gaborik era?
The answers will be noted by the guest professor John Tortorella, who, most likely, will not receive a degree after the semester.