So this is old news, but the NHL signed a 10 year contract with NBC/Versus for 200 million dollars a year. There will be over 100 games broadcasted between both stations. I'm hoping that they're not jacking the local feeds and will actually be using their own crew. It's a bit distasteful for fans of one team having to watch the other team's feed when they could be watching their own. I believe that it is ideal to have the NHL on a channel that will prominently feature them. There's a guaranteed six hours of NHL coverage on Versus per day on game days and 2 hours on non-game days. With shows like Hockey Central and NHL Overtime, there's no way you can ignore a network that will be putting your sport on first. ESPN has so many sports that many of it's games are being shoved online. You look at all the soccer matches that are shown on ESPN2 and ESPN3.com. They put baseball on ESPN2, unless it's Sunday Night. There's absolutely no room for hockey on ESPN. Even better is the fact that NBC will have the NHL, the only sport NBC has is football, and that's only on Sunday night. If you look at all the major sports though, the NHL still only has two channels on which it is broadcast.
NFL: NBC, FOX, CBS, ESPN
NBA: ABC, TNT, ESPN
MLB: FOX, TBS, ESPN
NHL: NBC, VERSUS
The good thing is that Versus is becoming more and more available across major television carriers. I think this is a great decision for the NHL and I don't have to worry about NHL coverage being pre-empted for other sports. Plus ESPN has crappy analysts when it comes to hockey, you get better coverage here.
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