What Broadcast Deals Could Mean For Women’s Hockey
Right now, the NHL has two billion-dollar deals for broadcasting in Canada and the United States. Rogers Communications owns broadcasting rights through the 2025-2026 season, a deal which is worth around $5.5 billion CAD (adjusted for inflation) and was signed in November 2013. In the United States, NBC owns NHL broadcasting rights for ten years, beginning in the 2011-2012 season and ending after the 2020-2021 season; it has ben reported that NBC will be paying around $285 million CAD (adjusted for inflation) annually, or $2.85 billion total.
That means that through two national broadcasting partnerships, the NHL is making more than $8 billion CAD from 2011 to 2026. While that’s all grand and good for them, what about the women’s leagues? How could broadcasting deals help women like they help men?
Right now, the NWHL has a broadcasting partnership with Cheddar, a channel available only online and on Sling TV; although this is great news in theory, Sling TV is only the 6th most popular over-the-top content provider in the United States, so the reach of the program isn’t too far. Too further cement the issue, it has been cited that lack of significant media deals is a reason for the NWHL salary cuts. On the plus side, NWHL games air sporadically on regional networks.
Although the CWHL has a deal with Sportsnet to air games until the 2017-2018 season, they only air games few and far between. For example, in the 2016-2017 season, they are only broadcasting two regular season games, one in January and one in February, along with the All-Star Game and the Clarkson Cup Final. Although it is great that these games are airing on TV, the low content amount makes it hard for them to be used to raise CWHL awareness and likely revenue.
Better broadcast deals mean more income, and thus more money for hockey operations, specifically in regards to paying fairly women for their work. When speaking of the Rogers Communications deal, Chief Operating Officer of the NHL, John Collins, said that “Over the course of 12 years it provides a lot of economic certainty for the clubs and, ultimately, for the cap... Fifty cents of every dollar goes into the player salaries.” A major broadcast deal for the NWHL or CWHL would be perfect not only for raising awareness of the league, but could also increase funding for the players’ salaries like how it does in the NHL, although at a smaller scale. However, for this to occur, broadcast networks need to know that they will have an audience if they aid women’s hockey.
What can I do to help?
When the games are on TV, make sure to watch them and encourage others to do the same!
Write them to let you know that you are extremely interested in watching the CWHL and NWHL on TV!
