ESPN dropped the puck Tuesday night (October 11) on its 2022-23 National Hockey League regular season schedule, its second campaign as part of a seven-year deal with the league signed in 2021.

The network’s 103 NHL games will feature more linear TV exposure for the league on ESPN and ABC, as well as less overlap of games throughout the season, according to ESPN officials. The sports network will look to improve on the 616,000 viewers it averaged last season for live NHL regular-season telecasts on ESPN and ABC.

ESPN senior VP of programming acquisitions Ilan Ben-Hanan discusses ESPN’s NHL live-game distribution strategy in an interview with Multichannel News. An edited transcript of that conversation appears below. 

MCN: Going into ESPN’s second season of NHL’s coverage, are you more confident about the network’s distribution of the sport across its platforms?

Ilan Ben-Hanan: Year one was really about establishing our credibility and authenticity. We came into this after few years without being a rights holder of the NHL, and we wanted to make sure that fans knew that they could trust us to cover hockey. We were very pleased with what we were able to do in year one, but like anything else, there's always a learning curve. There were things that we wanted to build on to get ready for in year two, and we feel like we’re ready for them. We're chomping jump a bit as usual to get started here.

MCN: What’s different this year compared to ESPN’s presentation last year? 

IBH: I'll start on the scheduling side just because we work so closely with the league on that. In year one we got the rights deal done a little later in the process, and the schedule had been fairly baked by the time we got a chance to get after it. Still, we put together a good schedule that we were really proud of, and we learned a lot in year one. For example, there’ll be less overlapping of the 103 exclusive games that we have, so this year fans will be able to see all of those games. We’ll also have more doubleheaders or more games spread out over more days of the week to allow for a better sampling opportunity for our exclusive games. We’ll also have three Saturday night games -- last year we only had one, so we're really excited about that and we know the league is excited as well. 

MCN: In general will there be more regular-season games on linear TV channels compared to last year when most of those games were on ESPN Plus?

IBH: We have a slight change in strategy in that respect. Last year of our 103 games, 28 were on linear and 75 were on ESPN Plus and Hulu. This year that split is going to be more balanced – 50 games on linear and 53 games on ESPN Plus and Hulu. It’s an opportunity we saw in our schedule to put the NHL on linear Tv a few more times. ESPN Plus and Hulu remain vitally important to our schedule, and we still have more than one thousand games available [via digital] through our outer market package. 

MCN: With one year under your belt, what are your expectations from an audience and ratings perspective going into the second season? 

IBH: When we announced the deal, we said this was not going to be something measured off just one metric, meaning television ratings. This is really a first-of-its-kind deal for us to have the quality and quantity of games we had available exclusively on ESPN Plus and Hulu. We wanted to make it evident to other leagues and to fans that you could find premier content on a direct-to-consumer service produced with the same level of care, attention and high quality that you'd see on linear. Across all of those metrics, we were very pleased with last year’s results and we hope that continues to build this season. ■ 

With the ad-supported version of its HBO Max product only a few days old, HBO Max executive VP and general manager Andy Forssell told an industry audience that the product and others like it could open up a whole new market for streaming, and eventually help to push the TV universe past 100 million homes. 

WarnerMedia launched its ad-supported version of HBO Max on June 2, priced at $9.99 per month and geared toward more cost-conscious consumers.  At the Barclays virtual Future of Media conference Thursday, Forssell said that the potential for ad-supported streaming is huge.   

“You’re going to get to a larger market. The total addressable market is larger,” Forssell said. “Netflix is probably defining the ceiling on what full penetration in the U.S. market is and they’re riding that up and in some cases they are propelling that wave. I think with ad supported, you add 20% to that."

Currently there are about 85 million pay TV customers in the U.S., but Forssell predicted ad-supported streaming could help push that total higher. 

“We should get back to [the] 100 million-plus homes that we served during the heyday of cable,” he continued. “I think SVOD and some ad-supported SVOD versions should get back to that.”

HBO Max said that it will keep ad loads low on the service -- a maximum of 4 minutes per hour -- and Forssell said that won’t change. 

“Our hypothesis there is message recall, brand recall will be higher the fewer ads you have,” Forssell said. “They’ll be worth more and we'll get to monetize that, ad partners will agree that they are worth more. That’s the experiment we have to prove out in the next year and make it reality and not flip back into what many providers have done in maybe starting with a similar thesis, but saying let’s add another ad to this break because that's the easiest way to increase revenue.”  

Forssell also talked about sports rights, adding that the old way of selling sports rights -- offering what he called “odd little slices” of rights to cable networks -- probably won’t work in a streaming world. 

“I don’t think that [sports] rights landscape is going to be nearly as successful in SVOD,” he said. 

He pointed to Turner Networks’ agreement with the National Hockey League, which also has an HBO Max component.

“Hockey primarily was a vote of confidence and investment in the Turner Networks,” Forssell said. “To add a major sport there was a statement we wanted to make. Will we experiment with that on HBO Max? Sure.” 

But he added that sports brings new challenges to streaming, especially on how they are presented. Providers should also be thinking about things like shoulder programming around games, and whether talent connected with that content should be different in the digital and linear worlds. 

For news operations like CNN, he said the linear relationship will continue as the company looks for streaming complements. 

CNN is said to be readying a streaming service called CNN Plus, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. 

“We will look at what you can do direct-to-consumer,” Forssell said. “We don’t think it’s just repurposing all of that and putting it online in some IP directed format. We think it’s going to change, some of the content needs to change. There is a lot of work going on as to what that will look like.”

Still, Forssell said he was optimistic about the fit between streaming news and entertainment. “They [have] different needs, but I’m optimistic," he said. “Sports, I’m not pessimistic, but it’s going to take some experimentation on what works in SVOD, because what works in cable doesn’t necessarily translate.” 

MSG Networks is launching original programming as the National Hockey League gets set to drop the puck and start its Stanley Cup Qualifiers games on August.1.

On July 27, the network will debut Around the NHL, presented by Chase, a new weekday program hosted by Michelle Gingras and Anson Carter.

The show will highlight league news and action and feature guest interviews.

The network is also launching MSG Hockey IQ, an NHL themed trivia show on July 27.

MSG Hockey IQ features broadcasters Sam Rosen, Joe Micheletti, John Giannone, Steve Valiquette, Brendan Burke, Butch Goring and Shannon Hogan getting ready for the season and answering trivia questions. The show is presented by Cadillac.

On Tuesday, MSG Networks will air a Rangers Return to Play Preview, followed by an Islanders Return to Play Preview on Wednesday.

One World Sports has reached an agreement with Harvard University Athletics to air five home hockey games from the storied institution beginning at the end of this month.

One World Sports will feature three men’s hockey events and two women’s hockey contests, with all five productions simulcast on the Ivy League Digital Network. 

The Harvard ice hockey games being featured on One World Sports include:

• Saturday, January 30                      Women’s Hockey vs. Princeton                                 4:00 PM
• Saturday, February 6                      Women’s Hockey vs. Yale                                            4:00 PM
• Friday, February 12                         Men’s Hockey vs. Rensselaer                                     7:00 PM
• Saturday, February 13                    Men’s Hockey vs. Union                                               7:00 PM
• Saturday, February 20                    Men’s Hockey vs. Colgate                                            7:00 PM

“While ice hockey continues to grow in popularity in the United States, it is the leading sport in Canada and there are nearly 1.5 million participants worldwide competing,” said One World executive vice president, programming & production Joel Feld in a statement. “When we learned that nearly one-third of the ice hockey players at Harvard and its opposing teams were from outside the United States, we saw these collegiate match-ups as a great complement to our current KHL and CHL coverage and a way to showcase these competitions nationally.”

The Harvard Men’s & Women’s Hockey Teams are each ranked in the national polls at No. 7 and No. 8, respectively, and currently sit in the top five of the ECAC Hockey standing. Both programs also boast a top-five defense at the national level.

“We’re excited to feature both of our successful ice hockey teams on ONE World Sports and gain exposure for our athletes and programs on a growing distribution network,” said Harvard University director of multimedia & production Imry Halevi in a statement. “We’re always looking for new ways to tell our story – what makes Harvard University and the Ivy League different and special in the world of college athletics – and this is a great opportunity to share our story by expanding the reach of our in-house broadcasts.”

In Demand will offer an 18-day free preview of the NHL's Center Ice out-of-market game pacakge to affiliates beginning Oct. 8 as part of the league’s rollout of its digital live game offerings.

The NHL Center Ice package, which offers 40 live out-of-market NHL games every week across 14 channels, will retail at a suggested retail price of $159.96, said league officials. Along with the live game offerings, the package also provides a multi-screen mosaic which showcases all the live games being played each night, as well as same day replays of games and dual feed telecasts.

In Demand affiliates including Comcast Xfinity, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, Bright House Networks, Verizon FiOS, Cablevision Systems, Charter Communications and RCN will offer the package free of charge through Oct. 25, said In Demand officials.

The league Monday also touted its other digital services including its NHL GameCenter Live product, which provides a multi-screen experience for fans streaming live games over their computers, Apple iPhones and iPads, Android phones and tablets, internet-connected devices including Apple TV, Xbox 360 and PlayStation gaming consoles, Roku devices and for the first time, the Xbox One gaming console.

Fans watching on computers will experience a redesigned video player with improved viewing controls, including a sidebar on the right side of the screen for one-click access to stats, in-game highlights, league news, and Twitter, said the league.

Users of the NHL App, formerly the NHL GameCenter app, will experience cleaner design that gives users one tap access to video content, scores, top news stories, live game audio, and social media updates, said league officials. Fans can customize settings to follow their favorite teams for personalized news, video and team alerts, said the league.

Following coverage of the stretch run and playoffs last season, One World Sports has inked a multiyear, multiplatform rights deal with the Kontinental Hockey League.

Under the pact, the global sports proponent will carry up to 99 live games, including 50 regular-season contests and complete coverage of the playoffs and the Gagarin Cup Finals in April.

The deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, was negotiated for the KHL by UFA Sports GmbH.

Sportscaster Ed Cohen, who, among numerous hosting roles, has served as an NHL Network anchor and called last year’s KHL playoffs and Gagarin Cup Finals coverage for ONE World Sports, will be calling games again this season.

One World Sport’s commitment to the KHL expands its ice hockey portfolio – the programmer is also airing the inaugural campaign of Europe’s Champions Hockey League

“The KHL offers some of the best professional hockey in the world,” said Joel Feld, ONE World Sports executive vice president, of programming and production.“This year we have extended programming agreements with major professional sports leagues on three continents. Now, fans in the U.S. and Canada can experience high-level professional hockey while following their favorite NHL alumni in the KHL.”

“Our previous one-year deal with ONE World Sports was a chance to introduce the KHL and our quality production to American fans,” said Ilya Kochevrin, KHL-Marketing’s CEO and league vice president. “The current multiyear contract extension underscores our commitment to our U.S. broadcast partner and increases the number of KHL games available to American sports fans by 80%.  The upcoming season, featuring KHL ‘heavyweights’ as well as European and Russian newcomer teams, will surely excite passionate hockey fans.”

The Russia-based KHL was founded in 2008 and includes 28 teams from Russia and Europe. Teams hail from Finland, Belarus, Croatia, Latvia, Slovakia, Kazakhstan and Russia.  Several dozens of former NHL players have decided to continue their careers in the KHL during the League’s years of operation. The 2013-2014 season featured former Nashville Predator Alexander Radulov, currently the KHL’s top scorer; former Maurice Richard Trophy winner Jonathan Cheechoo; former Atlanta Thrashers and New Jersey Devils star Ilya Kovalchuk; and Sandish Ozolinsh, the Latvian-born, six-time NHL All-Star who recently retired to enter politics.

In April, Metallurg Magnitorogsk won the seven-game playoff final series, securing a championship for coach Mike Keenan on the 20th anniversary of his 1994 Stanley Cup victory as the head coach of the New York Rangers and the first ever Gagarin Cup victory for the Magnitogorsk squad.

With the recent launch on Charter systems, One World Sports has built its subscriber base to some 30 million. It also has affiliate deals with Verizon FiOS, Cablevision, Dish Network, Mediacom, Hawaiian Telcom and Google Fiber.