For Outdoor Life Network, media rights to the premier open-air events are not quite enough. The network also may be preparing an aggressive bid for an NHL television package that could mark the first step in transforming OLN into a competitor to ESPN.
From the NHL’s perspective, OLN may represent the league’s best chance of commanding a rights fee for its cable television package, after ESPN chose not to exercise a $60 million option for next season.
A high-ranking source at ESPN said there have been no talks between the league and the network since the NHL lockout was settled, and a top-level executive at Turner Broadcasting said it is unlikely that Turner would ever do a deal with the NHL. Viacom’s Spike TV has indicated it does not want to pay a rights fee to the NHL.
That leaves only Comcast Corp., which owns OLN as well as regional sports networks and the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers, as the prime contender for NHL rights.
Neither the league, OLN nor Comcast would comment specifically on any possible talks, but multiple sources said Comcast’s new head of programming Jeff Shell, a former Fox Sports Net executive, has had discussions with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman regarding a television deal for a Comcast-owned network.
Shell has been given a mandate by Comcast to grow OLN and develop a programming strategy that could take OLN into traditional team sports, according to people with close ties to the company. Earlier this year, Comcast quietly pursued an NFL rights package for OLN, and the network also has explored motorsports and other sports that fall outside its existing outdoor programming base, sources said.
OLN President Gavin Harvey, while not addressing any questions specifically about the NHL, made it clear the network is governed by a desire to grow its audience more than remaining true to its brand name or existing lineup.
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| OLN has put its full promotional effort behind its Tour de France coverage. |
“We try to be focused, but not so focused that we miss opportunities,” Harvey said. “We are a sports- and competition-oriented, male-skewed network.”
Sounding fresh out of a pitch from the NHL about its valuable demographics, Harvey said that when it comes to programming, “The question is, ‘Are we serving the interest of male 18- to 34-year-olds and 18- to 49-year-olds who live vicariously through the adrenaline rush of competition?’”
OLN’s programming lineup could be described as ranging from diverse to schizophrenic. Its core remains fishing and hunting, but with a new dash of adventure and reality shows like the Emmy-nominated “Fearless.” They share the airwaves with the Gravity Games, the action sports competition that OLN acquired in January 2004, and the Professional Bull Riders, the network’s highest-rated regular series.
Last month, OLN acquired rights to reruns of “Survivor.” It paid a relatively modest $85,000 an episode, a source said.
The NHL would likely cost considerably more, although the market value for the sport is unclear following the yearlong lockout and a decade of ratings erosion.
ESPN replaced canceled NHL playoff games this spring with regular-season college baseball and softball telecasts — sports that were never before shown on the network in their regular seasons — and they posted ratings equal to what the NHL playoffs did in years past.
The network’s executive vice president of programming and production, Mark Shapiro, has questioned the value of the league as a TV property in the past few months. His first comments came the day the season was canceled in February, when he and other ESPN executives told reporters that the NHL would need to adopt rules changes to keep its relationship with the network.
Then, on a media conference call in June to announce ESPN was not picking up its NHL option, Shapiro said the network was willing to pay a rights fee for the league but at less than half the $60 million option price, preferring instead a revenue-share deal similar to what the NHL has with NBC.
His comments were perceived by league officials as kicking them when they were down and left Bettman incensed, said people who’ve discussed the subject with Bettman personally. It also left the league in search of a new TV partner that will promote hockey enthusiastically, something NHL and club officials feel ESPN did not do.
OLN would be just such a candidate.
The network has put all the promotional muscle it can muster behind the Tour de France and has pledged to do the same behind the America’s Cup and all other properties it acquires.
But while OLN might be the most attractive outlet for the NHL, such a move would not come without a price for the league. ESPN is fully distributed across all cable systems, reaching more than 90 million homes, while OLN’s footprint is barely two-thirds the size, reaching 63 million homes. The network also lacks the built-in audience of ESPN and ESPN2, averaging 104,260 households in prime time and a 0.17 cable universe rating this year. That’s less than a tenth of ESPN’s average prime-time viewing audience (1,079,000 households, 1.2 cable rating) and less that a quarter of ESPN2’s (452,000 households, 0.5 cable rating).
When the Professional Bull Riders moved to OLN from TNN (now Spike TV), its ratings dropped from a range of 0.8 to 1.2 on TNN to a 0.4 on OLN. The total audience remained about the same, because OLN quadrupled the number of telecasts. That’s the sort of trade-off the NHL must consider.
“I don’t see [going to OLN] as a positive step for the NHL, unfortunately,” said Bob Gutkowski, CEO of Criterion Sports & Entertainment and former president of Madison Square Garden. “Coming out of what they’ve come out of, they’ve got to try to get the most exposure possible, and OLN is still not a strong sports brand in this country. They would have to work very hard with OLN to make it a step forward. On the other hand, they can’t just be a servant to ESPN.”
Comcast’s intention, insiders say, is not just to add programming to OLN, but to own a viable competitor to ESPN. Whether that comes in the form of an entirely new network — which would require multiple programming deals signed in rapid-fire fashion — or a retooled OLN, the NHL would be just the first step.
“I don’t think you can really mount a challenge to ESPN unless it’s with the NFL,” said Dean Jordan, an executive at the consulting firm OnSports and former president of the Carolina Hurricanes. “It would have to involve rebranding, programming, something more than obviously the National Hockey League. But, Comcast has the means to do that.”
