The '15-16 NHL season opens tonight with an NBCSN “Rivalry Night” telecast that sees the Stanley Cup Champion Blackhawks hosting the Rangers. NBC Sports Exec VP/Sales & Sales Marketing Seth Winter said that even without an expected boost in ad dollars from the daily fantasy category (those deals had not been completed as of presstime), booked NHL sales are up 30%. He said, “That doesn’t mean we expect to finish the season up 30%, but a lot of existing advertisers, especially NHL sponsors, have made their buys earlier to get what they wanted, and expanded their footprint across our NHL broadcasts. ... And we’ve raised the bar on the cost of entry for some of our best inventory." Winter cited expanded NHL league sponsors Honda, Miller-Coors, McDonald’s and Geico as among the most active. Vibrant categories named by Winter were auto, insurance and QSRs. This season’s schedule of 105 regular-season games on NBC Sports Group is its largest to date. Last season, NBCSN had 24 exclusive "Rivalry Night" matchups on Wednesdays, averaging 565,000 viewers, which was up 1% from the '13-14 season (559,000 viewers for 23 games). Since obtaining NHL rights in time for the '05-06 season, NHL viewership on NBC has risen from around 560,000 per game ago to more than 1 million per game last season.
