After years of selling broadcast rights to the highest bidder, sports leagues are rediscovering the importance of growing their audienceThere are few institutions in this country that trigger as much dependable outrage as hockey and the CBC. Even so, when The Globe and Mailthat the public broadcaster wouldn’t be airing Games 5 and 6 of the Western Conference final between the Edmonton Oilers and Dallas Stars, the howls that arose from coast to coast were impressive in their breadth and volume.
That deal is up in two years, and more players are now signalling their interest in bidding on the next round of rights. In April, Amazon’s Prime streaming service in Canada joined the action when it snapped up the rights to Monday night games from Rogers. Since then, Prime has unveiled a series of NHL-related programming, including this week’s announcement of a new live weekly Thursday night whip-around studio show, starting next season, which will check in on every NHL game in progress.
It still has the power to achieve mass reach. Which, as it happens, is exactly what sports leagues are rediscovering is important if they want to keep growing their fan bases. In a world awash with sports content – highlights are free, and at your fingertips 24/7, not to mention an endless scroll of athlete-produced video – leagues now understand they need to make the games themselves more accessible than they have been, if they want to grow their fan bases.said it had struck a deal with TSN and CBC/Radio-Canada