How much disrespect can the league take from its primary US broadcast partner? In addition to hardly broadcasting or covering the NHL, ESPN’s flagships shows and main talking heads are now openly disparaging the league on live TV.
I guess we all should have expected this poor coverage when three of ESPN’s most prominent talking heads have happily and loudly mocked the NHL and its fans.
Only a few days ago, both Stephen A. Smith and Molly Qerim on First Take derided the New York Rangers and hockey as a team and sport that “doesn’t count” and the only thing they knew about hockey was “that the puck is black” when Michael Kay, the longtime voice of the New York Yankees, said the Rangers would be the next New York team to win a championship.
Seriously.
Now, I understand that the NHL is probably the” least” watched (as if tens of millions of people watching is a bad thing) and enjoyed of the four major sports leagues of North America (NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL), but the way the NHL has been absolutely disrespected by the main figure heads at ESPN is criminal.
You’d think the NHL was some sort of niche, otherworldly sport that less than 1% of the total North American population watches with the way people like Stephen A. Smith, Max Kellerman, and Molly Qerim speak about it.
I’m not trying to throw shade or disrespect these people as I do enjoy watching them on TV, but Max Kellerman used to say that every hockey team had only 20,000 diehard fans and would dismiss the sport, Stephen A. Smith shows an extraordinary amount of annoyance and contempt whenever hockey is mentioned as well as diminishing the achievements of the legendary NHL teams when presented before him (ex: his list rankings), and Molly Qerim straight up said that hockey “doesn’t count” as a major sport.
For being the figureheads of ESPN, the very network that bought the rights to broadcast the NHL for $2.8B (400M/year) over the next 7 years (starting in 2021/22), to openly and constantly mock and belittle a sport that not only generated a revenue of $5B last year (so much for the 20,000 diehard fans comment), but also is the #1 sport in Canada (a country of 38.25M people) and generated an average of 4.6M viewers per Stanely Cup game last year (US metrics) is downright pathetic.
But it’s not only Smith, Qerim, and Kellerman as the coverage of the NHL on other programs is also criminally minimal.
The only dedicated hockey show on ESPN is The Point, which is a half-assed (sorry, but it’s true) show that barely gets airs on ESPN2 when the most important days to the hockey calendar (ex: free agency, trade deadline, draft, etc.) come around, while shows like Sportscenter, Get Up, This Just In, Around The Horn are legitimately allergic to even mentioning hockey in a serious discussion segment.
Again, I understand the NFL, NBA, and MLB are more popular sports than hockey, but to not even have a show dedicated to the sport on either one of the two major television stations (ESPN, ESPN2) when there are NFL (NFL Live) and NBA dedicated shows (NBA Today) ON THE MAIN CHANNEL is simply negligent and neglectful.
And, in closing, ESPN barely even broadcasts the actual games on either television channels as they are all stuffed behind a paywall on ESPN+. You’re honestly more likely to find a women’s college basketball game or a high school football game on ESPN and ESPN2 than an NHL game.
Thus, if I was Gary Bettman, I’d be looking at getting out of this ESPN contract as soon as possible and either moving everything onto TNT (which is doing a very good job) or another sports network (CBS, FOX, NBC if the NHL wants to partner with them again, etc.).
Just do something to get out of this terrible deal, or have Stephen A. Smith, Molly Qerim, and Max Kellerman all dress up on air in Rangers, Islanders, Sabres, or whatever New York team they support’s gear for two whole months.
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