News

The sports broadcasting industry has rarely covered a competition as important as this.

Negotiations for new television deals with the National Hockey League and Canadian Football League have started.

And, should the CBC lose hockey, or football or perhaps even both to CTV-TSN, it would mark an unprecedented change in Canadian sports TV.

The CBC, after all, has been the NHL's main network since 1952. And the CBC has been airing CFL games almost as long as hockey.

Let's look first at the NHL. Its TV contracts will expire at the end of the 2007-08 season, and, with talks under way, new agreements could be reached as early as January.

Sources say the league is seeking a huge increase, citing, as a reference point, the record $153-million (U.S.) paid by the CTV-TSN-Rogers Media partnership for the Olympics in 2010 and 2012.

The CBC is paying about $65-million a year for the Saturday night NHL doubleheader and playoffs and is believed to earn an annual profit of between $25-million and $30-million.

Even if the CBC hangs on to hockey, the cash cow will disappear because the NHL, in its new deal, will demand at least $100-million a year.

For CTV-TSN, the price would be even higher because it wants everything — broadcast rights for CTV and cable rights for TSN.

For that sort of consolidation, a premium could be imposed. After all, leagues generally like to spread around their games. The National Football League has U.S. deals with four networks, Fox, CBS, NBC and ESPN, as well as its own NFL Network.

We reported in the summer that CTV-TSN could pay $140-million a year for NHL broadcast and cable rights as well as French-language rights for TSN's RDS. The league may seek even more.

If CTV-TSN were successful in acquiring the whole package, it would put most of the content on TSN. Instead of a doubleheader on Saturday night, CTV would carry just one game, with other going to TSN. In the playoffs, TSN would air the bulk of the Canadian series, with CTV coming in for the Stanley Cup final.

CTV's limited participation is tied to its weeknight commitments to U.S. programming and to some part of its Saturday night schedule as a repository for its Canadian drama obligations.

There's also the issue of money. TSN can afford to lose on hockey telecasts, on a production costs against advertising revenue basis, because it has the additional revenue stream of cable fees. CTV, as a broadcaster, does not. Nor, for that matter, does the CBC.

Sources say TSN is being pitched to the league, not as just another specialty channel limited to cable, but as a sports TV powerhouse that can produce audiences as large as the CBC.

For the past two season-opening telecasts, TSN outdrew the CBC. Last spring, when the CBC and TSN shared coverage of the NHL's Eastern Conference final (Buffalo-Carolina), TSN's audience average was virtually the same as the CBC's.

The CBC could easily lose this one, but don't count it out. The demise of the venerable Hockey Night in Canada, a CBC brand, is the sort of publicity the NHL doesn't need. The league could renew the CBC deal and appease TSN by giving it more Canadian content in the regular season and playoffs.

A quick look at football. In 2003, the CBC and TSN agreed to share the rights in a deal that pays the league about $10-million a year.

This time, it will be CTV-TSN bidding against the CBC, although the CFL has inquired about interest from CanWest Global.

Sources say the CBC is taking an aggressive stand. It is pondering a strategy of going after TSN's Friday night package while retaining its current schedule: regular season, playoffs and the Grey Cup.

Should CTV-TSN win the rights, CTV's participation would be limited to playoff games and the Grey Cup. TSN would take over the CBC's schedule of regular-season games while holding on to its own schedule.

CFL audiences jumped significantly in the late 1990s, but since 2002, TSN's numbers are up about 6 per cent. The CBC's are down about 8 per cent.

Are the rights worth $15-million a year? We'll see.

What we do know is the CTV-TSN challenge for hockey and football is the most aggressive the CBC has ever received. And the CBC shows no sign of waving the white flag.

Hull to NBC

It hasn't been announced yet, but Brett Hull has accepted an offer to work on NBC's NHL broadcasts this season.

Hull, a future Hockey Hall of Famer, will be a studio analyst. He retired from the NHL a few weeks into last season. Outspoken and colourful, he's been viewed for years as a natural for television.