MSG Hockey Coverage Benefits From Mets, Yanks Missing Playoffs

By John Ourand, Staff Writer

This is the first season in 13 years that the N.Y. market has no postseason baseball, and MSG Network says its hockey coverage so far has been a big beneficiary. Even in a down economy, ad sales and sponsorships for the season that starts tonight are pacing ahead of last year for the Rangers, Islanders, Devils and Sabres games that air on MSG and MSG Plus. "Advertisers still have budgets," said MSG Media President Mike Bair. "There's less money to spend against baseball right now, obviously. ... We're a convenient, well-priced place to be." MSG Senior VP/Media Sales Art Ventura agreed. "The lack of baseball has helped our revenue to a degree," he said. "It's really helped in that more attention is being paid to hockey right now." While MSG execs say that many advertisers are waiting to the last minute to make their decisions, MSG has signed ad deals with Emblem Health, Honda and Ford. Infinity bought a title sponsorship for the Rangers postgame show and "Hockey Night Live," an hour-long weekly telecast on Saturday nights at 9:30pm ET that reviews the week for each of the teams and looks into league-wide news as well. On screen, MSG will carry all Rangers, Islanders and Devils games in HD. All Sabres home games will be available in HD as well. "That's important for hockey," Bair said. "This sport is the most important one to be telecast in HD." MSG will produce 30-minute pregame shows for the Rangers and Devils and 30-minute postgame shows for the Rangers, Devils and Islanders.