Save me the nostalgia of a themed song that probably isn’t one of the people with money on ESPN, who have spent years on the air not to mention the NHL, who could identify even if LeBron James and Tom Brady were humming it.
Don’t ask me about how much the NHL will benefit from the exposure of having their games televised on one or the other of Disney’s platforms, streaming or otherwise. This is what I’ve always wanted to know: what would an adult outside of Bristol, Conn., Possess to ever refer to a television network as “the mother ship” or “the world leader?”
There is one thing and another important thing that is attributed to the NHL media rights agreement with Disney, ESPN and its affiliate brands that include the Hulu broadcast service, which is money.
This is Rod Tidwell’s time for Slap Shots – show me the money and tell me how quickly his introduction to league revenue will be able to clear the NHL Players ’Association’s guaranteed debt that threatens to strangle the league more beyond the expiration of the current collective agreement.
That’s all that counts.
The salary cap, according to the agreement signed last summer, cannot be increased by more than $ 1 million per season until the guarantee debt is paid. Beyond that, if a certain amount of debt remains in deposit in 2024-25, the sides would have to come up with a formula according to which the PA would repay the league in full after the 2025-26 expiration of the CBA. Won’t it be fun? Kids who are currently 13 and play Bantam hockey would end up paying for it.
The deal with ESPN is believed to be worth approximately $ 420 million a year. A secondary package that has yet to be negotiated or completed with a second media rights partner is expected to cost approximately $ 200 million per dollar. This obviously represents a substantial increase in the $ 200 million in total that the NHL is receiving under its current deal with NBC networks, but probably not the case with the Grand Slam (OK, natural hat trick) that the league could have predicted before the pandemic. .
The debt on deposit at the end of this season is likely to be around $ 900 million. If players simply return half of the incoming TV money, is that about $ 310 million each? Therefore, it would take three years of cash for media rights to offset the current debt.
Except that the debt will almost certainly grow due to the excess annual payroll deposit. It is not yet explained what next season’s protocols may entail and whether full presence will be allowed throughout the league. But even if league revenues bounced back to the $ 5 billion projected for a completed period in 2019-2020, security deposit withholdings were at 14%.
After next season’s security deposit is limited to 16 to 18 percent, it will be limited to 10 percent in 2022-23 and six percent over the next three years of the deal. So unless the NHL generates additional revenue-generating initiatives, there will be spills every season, and where and when it will stop, no one knows for sure.
Maybe the NHL will thrive with exposure to ESPN, maybe the network will direct other properties to its Plus broadcast site, and hockey will reap additional benefits. But that deal was only for the money. The NHL will only be in debt to ESPN if this agreement is able to cover AP debt.
Not so much this season, when everything went wrong in Buffalo, but even when Taylor Hall had the Hart Trophy season in New Jersey 14 years ago (What is that? It was only three years ago?), There were people in the throughout the league talking about how the end was a “me” guy in a “us” sport.
So the Islanders, the Ultimate We team led by the Ultimate We Guys, Lou Lamoriello and Barry Trotz, would dare to try to incorporate Hall into the mix as a lease in the commercial deadline if Anders Lee’s injury is as serious as it might seem?
Here is the rule about Lamoriello: there are no rules.
When you think you know what he’s going to do, you don’t know.
The truth is that ESPN includes a group of professionals who will surely handle hockey very carefully, although it is inevitable that the network will do everything possible to cushion the sport, as it does regularly with most of its others. properties.
If there’s a petition that needs signatures to get Gary Thorne on the list of players per game next season, you can add mine electronically right now.
Instant, halfway home. Elite Eight: 1. Insulars; 2. Tampa Bay; 3. Toronto; 4. Carolina; 5. Las Vegas; 6. Washington; 7. Florida; 8. Pittsburgh.
Mid-season, biggest disappointments: 1. Dallas; 2. Colorado; 3. Colom; 4. Nashville.
Mid-season, 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 summoned Brandon Carlo was courtesy of a Sixth Avenue as exasperated as the rest by the predisposition of the Player Security Department to comb the small print for allow repeat headhunters to let the neckline free?
Do you realize, right, that through Friday’s games, seven of the 13 top NHL scorers were born in the U.S., with three coming from Canada?
Who had Dustin Brown, 36, tied for seventh in the league in scoring goals, with 13 until Friday?
Best question: who, even a couple of seasons ago, had Brown in the Kings at 36?
In the league, maybe?
Is there more separation between the first and second monkeys of 2015, Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel, or between Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine of 2016?
Finally, this Quick Quiz: Is Laine the new Marian Gaborik era?
The answers will be graded by visiting professor John Tortorella, who will most likely stop being a starter after the semester.