McGuinness have been adamant that the quality
of the broadcasts would not suffer.
NBC’s coverage of the NHL was supposed to
begin in January of 2005, but the season was
cancelled due to the lockout. It also morphed
from a revenue-sharing deal with no rights fees
paid to NBC and the league agreeing to a 10-
year, $2 billion rights agreement in April of 2011.
The network’s coverage expanded to cable that
year when Comcast acquired a majority stake in
NBC Universal and merged Versus (which would
later be rebranded NBC Sports Network) into the
sports division’s operations.
NBC growing the game’s popularity through its
extensive coverage of the playoffs, the Winter
Classic on New Year’s Day and advocating for
the All-Star game to switch to a three-on-three
format, are a driving reason why the upcoming
seven-year contracts with ESPN/ABC and Turner
Sports will add a combined $4.37 billion to the
league’s coffers.
The NHL this season received $350 million in
broadcast revenue from NBC ($250 million) and
Disney Streaming Services ($100 million for
digital rights). The upcoming deals will average
$625 million a year ($400 million from Disney
and $225 million from Turner).
“There’s a lot of things that we did sort of did
behind the scenes, just with different camera
angles and replays and super slow-mos and
X-mos and trying to use the technology as
much as we could. We had drones out at the
outdoor game in Lake Tahoe,” McGuinness said.
“Personally, I wish ESPN and Turner success. And
hopefully they’ll push the envelope even further
and make the games more enjoyable.”