National Hockey League Embraces TV Placeshifting

Egadfly writes "The 'placeshifting' technology that allows digitally recorded shows to be watched in several locations is growing increasingly popular. One particular reason for this popularity is because it enables sports fans to view locally blacked-out games over the Internet. The National Hockey League (NHL) has announced that it will actively support placeshifting by signing an agreement with SlingBox-maker Sling Media. The agreement will allow the company's "Clip+Sling" technologyto share both live and recorded NHL programming over the Internet. Significantly, this has happened only days after Major League Baseball (MLB) launched a public denunciation of placeshifting, accusing SlingBox owners of violating the law by sending television content over the Internet and accusing Sling Media itself of violating contracts with cable and satellite TV companies."

I think they're just happy...

Somebody's watching. Unlike MLB, I guess they're getting used to new shifts in tech.

Plus, given the strike, and the fact that NHL hasn't enjoyed the same American fan-backing other sports have, I'm pretty sure they're just happy someone's watching.

So, I can sling a video of an NHL game anywhere...

... but I still won't be able to see the puck on the screen. Great.

Re:So, I can sling a video of an NHL game anywhere

Back in 1996, FoxTrax [wikipedia.org] came into existence. It used state of the art technology to wrap the puck in a "glow" onscreen (and for kicks Fox added "comet trails" to the puck when it was fired at high speeds).

You know what? It COMPLETELY SUCKED. You know why? Because ANY IDIOT can see a black object against a bright white surface.

Not to mention, it was completely invasive. Contrast it with the yellow line shown during football games. Out of the way and easily ignored.

Hockey's problem in America isn't that Americans can't see the puck. Americans so the puck just fine during the NHL resurgence back in the 90s. Hockey's problem is that Americans won't return to any sport after a lockout unless the players have salaries greater than the GNP of some small nations (baseball).

Re:So, I can sling a video of an NHL game anywhere

Indeed, plus, it's pretty damn easy to *infer* where the puck is from the actions of the players onscreen.

Though I gotta say, I got an HDTV a few months ago, and hockey in HD is friggin awesome.

Center Ice?

This is probably going to really hurt for the "NHL Center Ice" people who carry the majority of games, which seems to mostly be used by people who moved away from their favorite team's area

NHL on versus

They could just put the games on a real network instead of Versus. Half of the Detroit market couldn't see half the playoff games the Wings were in.This works too, I'll be able to actually watch games instead of having to drive to my folks house. This won't help the NHL from continuing to alienate their less technical audience.

http://sportsbiznews.blogspot.com/2007/05/nhl-spor ts-league-that-sports-fans-cant.html [blogspot.com]

Re:Even worse for hockey fans

One of the reasons I like the playoffs is that I can pick whichever team has players from my college. Since my local team is the Bruins, I don't have to worry about having to cheer for my home team.

Noone watches anyways

I'm betting this is almost entirely due to the terrible ratings the NHL has been getting in the U.S. recently. Game 3 of the finals had a record low for NBC (lower than reruns of their crappy dramas!)

Re:Noone watches anyways

I'm sure this has nothing to do with a team from California being in the finals.

Any fan of hockey will tell you that there's no way teams like Anahiem, LA, San Jose, Nashville, Florida, and several others that I'm probably missing deserve to be in the league.

People in those towns don't care (remember how many Flames fans there were in Tampa Bay for that series?), and people around the league don't care about those towns.

Call me a troll or whatever, but if you're wondering why viewership has gone down in the NHL, the two big reasons are too many crap teams from cities who don't care about hockey, and the instigator rule, which encourages dirty play.

Again, mod me troll for this, I don't care... many (all?) of my hockey friends will tell you the exact same thing.

You're absolutely correct.

Not to bash the southern teams too badly, but they don't fill the buildings, they don't watch the local broadcasts, etc.

New Jersey can't sell out playoff games, so it's not a uniquely southern issue. If the on-ice product is so boring you have to advertise the competition coming to town, you have a problem.

The biggest problem with those teams is that they were the markets that were easy to expand to. Which meant more teams with the same number of quality players. So the league is diluted and bums are allowed to skate with future legends. Some of those bums attack other players because they aren't all that great at an NHL level without it. Scott Stevens, I'm looking at you.

I love what Don Cherry said during Game 4. People who believe that Americans won't watch hockey because it's too violent are crazy. Americans watch football, and ultimate fighting and Nascar. They don't watch them for incredible skills, they watch for the hits. Unlike football, ultimate fighting and Nascar, hockey has hits AND skill. Anybody who believes differently has probably never put on a pair of ice skates.

One last thing, I have no doubt that one reason that fewer Americans watched was because a Canadian team was in the finals. Everybody I talked to about the games were in two camps. The ones cheering on Anaheim weren't watching the games and just hated Canada. The ones watching each game intently were cheering for Ottawa.

Re:You're absolutely correct.

What do you mean the Southern teams don't fill the buildings, the bottom 6 in attendance this year were
25 Boston
26 New Jersey
27 Washington
28 NY Islanders
29 Chicago
30 St. Louis

Tampa Bay was #3 with an average of 19,876. Hockey just doesn't televise well in standard def, its not because of not being able to see the puck, its because you can't see the play develop and the action off the puck

Re:Noone watches anyways

Damn straight! I'm sick of the NHL pandering to American interests, when probably 98% of their population don't give two craps about Canada's popular sport.

They scheduled several Saturday playoff games at 2 in the afternoon, killing CBC's nighttime ratings twice (they lost all their night viewers, and even most Canadian hockey fans would prefer to be out on a warm and sunny afternoon after months of chilly weather). And why 2pm? Because of NBC, probably because they already had Saturday night commitments. In Game 5 of the Eastern finals, the game went into overtime. NBC ended their broadcast after the 3rd period, and so didn't air the goal that eliminated Buffalo and sent the Ottawa Senators to their first Stanley Cup series since they were resurrected as a team in 1992. That's the commitment the NHL gets from NBC.

Don Cherry called it a few nights ago, when he was guest commentator on the NBC broadcast. He lambasted Americans trying to turn NHL hockey into "family" sport. That the fighting made it a less "serious" sport. He rightfully pointed out the hypocrisy in this as parents let their kids watch UFC and take them to WWE matches. He made pointed reference to NASCAR too, though I didn't understand the connection.

Now, I'm not saying fights in hockey are exactly a GOOD thing, nor am I saying UFC and WWE (expecially WWE) are taken seriously either. But it's clear that violence in the latter sells a hell of a lot more than a fast-paced hockey game in the US. The NHL should never have expanded south as much as it did--it drove up player salaries and other costs until communities that actually cared about the game saw their home teams move to where they're not appreciated.

Yes, I'm bitter we lost the Stanley Cup--yet again--to a US team, in another city where a mere kilometre away from the arena passers-by didn't even know the final game of the championship was being played out.

And in relation to this rant, I just realized the absolute irony of my Slashdot ID.

its about damn time...

...that content creators make is EASIER for me to watch the content that they create. This can only mean more viewers, watching more of the content they create, which is a good thing all around.

Unlike MLB, which wants you to only watch their content on their terms. Screw that!

TV on Demand

I'd probably buy an NHL season pass via Xbox Live if if the content was HD and at least price-competitive with an NHL cable subscription.

Or, I'd be motivated to buy an AppleTV. I think most iTunes tv content isn't HD yet.

I'm not so sure about buying a Slingbox. ... then again my nerdy coworker just showed me a Slingbox session streaming through his Treo phone and now i kind of want one.

Preakness

As a hockey fan, it pains me to say this, but the people suggesting this is a desperation move by a league struggling to stay relevant in the USA are absolutely right. Low ratings for game 3 on NBC are one thing, but the real icing on the cake was when NBC pre-empted overtime during the Sabres-Senators series to show a pre-game show for Preakness. In Canada, this caused a minor outrage, but it didn't really matter since CBC showed the whole glorious game. In fact, I doubt many people up here know what "Preakness" means. Sounds like a soft drink or something. Any NHL fan can tell you the sport is floundering stateside: During the first-round series between Calgary and Detroit, it was damn near impossible to get tickets to watch the (utterly horrific) Flames on home ice. Meanwhile, some friends of mine traveled to Detroit and snapped up tickets on game day! And they were cheap! And they were great seats! And the Wings were playing about 100x better than the Flames. Finally, and slightly more on-topic, at the beginning of the playoffs, CBC announced that they would be doing on-demand streaming for all broadcasts of Hockey Night in Canada. At the end of the day, the league is pulling out all the stops trying to convince US audiences they should care about hockey. The Placeshifting issue is just one example of that. It won't work. Maybe they should convince NBC to fire Brett Hull, then people would be able to stomach the NBC telecasts? No, probably not. Sigh.

Check out Joost

Just picked up an invite for Joost, guess it from the same guys that made Skype. It works very well, you can even watch all the NHL play off games to stay on topic.

It'll be entertaining to see when this takes off (It's not a matter of if, the beta is that good.) how loud the networks start screaming when these guys not only eat their lunch, but drink all their beer too.

This just goes to show ...

that some people get it, and some people don't, and the degree to which you "get it" depends upon how happy you are with the status-quo.

NHL likely to follow new tech

I'm glad to see it. A few years back the NHL started introducing "special effects" like creating a sort of "halo" around the puck to easily spot it behind the boards or the red trail when the puck broke a certain speed. I suppose if they didn't change with the times they'd still play without helmets and have chain-link instead of Plexiglas...

Not a bad move

The NHL has never, ever had great ratings on national television. Part of this is indeed a lack of interest. The NHL will never have the interest of any of the other three major sports, and somebody's got to be fourth. But the other major problem is quality hockey in quality markets. Ottawa and Anaheim in this year's finals, Carolina and Edmonton in last years. Why did the ratings suck? because if you add up the populations of those four (Anaheim proper, excluding LA) cities, you're probably not much bigger than Chicago. They could have drawn a 30 share in the American team's city and not made a dent nationally. It's the nature of the sport. Hell, NBC national games featuring Detroit and Buffalo (cradles of US hockey) performed poorly on a national level, but drew Super Bowl-level interest locally. For the NHL to make a dent in national TV ratings, they need a New York Rangers - Los Angeles Kings final every year. (I'd say an Islanders - Kings final, but who are we kidding? I'll sniff a super model's panties before the Isle's sniff a Stanley Cup Finals game.)

FYI NBC does not pay the NHL for rights to broadcast games nationally. Even if hockey draws poorly, it's essentially free to the network. NBC is well aware of how Hockey draws in the US, but knows that they will always make money on any game they show. Some of their Saturday games this year did outdraw the competing NBA games.

As for the deal with slingbox, it's not really desperation. The NHL just landed a fat deal to stay on CBC in Canada (THANK GOD) that dwarfs any of the money Poker and UFC are getting. This on top of the waaaaaaaaay overpriced deal that Comcast (owners of Versus) coughed up in an attempt to legitimize their network (and to give a middle finger to ESPN). Being the red headed stepchild of pro-sports gives Hockey a chance to reach out. Hockey needs to keep it's ratings where they are. They can't afford to alienate even a small percentage of their remaining fan base and if they can find an edge, any edge, to pull an extra 50 or 100k pairs of eyes, they'll do it. Maybe enough folks will latch on to the idea to make the big sports change their tune.

Remember Betamax?

I find it intriguing that the NHL comes down in favor of placeshifting and MLB comes down against it when they were both in favor of timeshifting [findlaw.com]. The difference, now, is that MLB has a strong product while the NHL's U.S. audience (not wonderful in the first place) has dwindled to insignificance. If MLB had just come off of another player's strike, you'd bet they'd be in bed with Slingbox, antiquated territorial broadcast rules be damned.

Canada vs. US TV ratings

From the CBC [www.cbc.ca]:

Ratings on CBC's Hockey Night in Canada were about the same as last year's Edmonton-Carolina tilt through the first four games of the final, but down 16 per cent from Calgary-Tampa Bay in 2004.

A poll by Decima Research before the Anaheim-Ottawa series suggested 24 per cent of Canadians felt Toronto is Canada's representative hockey team, compared to 22 per cent for Montreal and just 15 per cent for the Senators.

Yet with the Senators facing elimination, not a single federal MP bothered to offer a statement of support Wednesday in the House of Commons.

Still, Canada's hockey fervour simply eclipses support in the far larger American market.

NBC recorded the network's lowest-ever rating for a prime time program when it broadcast Game 3 from Ottawa on Saturday night. In a market 10 times larger, NBC got less than half the 2.6 million viewers who watched the game in Canada.

Even in Anaheim's Orange County home, things aren't exactly ducky.

Only a small percentage of southern Californians follow hockey, not surprising given the many competing pro sports and a climate fit for bikinis rather than balaclavas.

Those who support the Ducks are keen - the team sold out its last 34 home games, including Wednesday night - but the interest is not widespread.

When a restaurant on the Pacific Ocean 20 kilometres to the west of the Honda Center set out a sidewalk sign announcing Monday's game from Ottawa would be shown on a widescreen TV, the few folks on hand paid little attention to the action. Staff wouldn't turn off the music so the play-by-play audio could be heard.

That would be incomprehensible on Ottawa's Sens Mile, some 30 kilometres east of Scotiabank Place.

Most bars along the Elgin Street strip were full by 5:30 p.m. ET Wednesday, almost three hours before game time, and after the puck dropped in Anaheim the only sounds on the street were the muffled play-by-play of CBC's Bob Cole and roaring fan reaction - both inside and out.

Lineups at the bigger establishments remained three deep on the sidewalk as fans watched the game through open windows.

Great Move By the Struggling NHL

This is a great move by the NHL. This won't cause the Center Ice package to lose money, since you can't actually watch the sling + clip clips live.
I have a HD-DVR cable box, so i can control my dvr and cable box all from my slingbox. Being on the road 4 out of 5 days a week, slingbox has been a lifesaver. And being a fan of the NHL, i can actually enjoy my center ice package using the slingbox.

NHL players have also embraced this technology. The NJ Devils were given Slingboxes as a Christmas present. I know that a bunch of them use it on the road to follow other teams/friends.

The NHL struggles with viewership. My solution, put it back on ESPN!!! The coverage on ESPN is so much better than NBC/Versus. Get that boring-ass Bill Clement off the air and that moronic Brett Hull off the air as well. Mike "Doc" Emerick is the only good thing they got going for them. Also, shrink the league so that they get rid of any team that doesn't have atleast 5 days of snow a year!

I really should work for the NHL, I'd turn it around real quick.

They did themselves in

Chicago used to be a big hockey town before they started blacking out games if they weren't sold out. Guess what? A whole generation basically never watched the games on TV and now they have no fans. Not that I really care about hockey.

Hockey world in a nutshell

1. A team south of the Mason-Dixon line doesn't deserve to win the cup according to some canadians albeit the team probably has more canadian players than the opponent.
2. Garry Bettman is evil and only panders to US needs.
3. Winnipeg and Quebec deserve their teams back.
4. Don Cherry is fair and balanced in his views especially when it comes to european players.
5. If your team loses there must be something wrong with the referees (universal)
6. If you're seeing a blackhawks homegame on tv in Chicago you're on drugs.
7. If the other stanley cup finalist has an european captain they will lose.
8. If you don't speak french and play for the Canadiens you're shit out of luck when it comes to the media. Mon dieu.
9. Russians stop playing after they get a big contract.
10. Pronger debunks newtonian physics and comes up with his own. Don Cherry praises him for it since he's a good canadian boy with a heart of gold.

There's probably even more which I forgot as usual but in general when hockey fans start arguing about the sports logic is the 1st casualty and truth the 2nd but it's like that with most sports. Slingbox deal is a step in the right direction but what I'd really like them to come up with is a streaming service where one could just watch the games you want for a modest fee but I really doubt this will happen anytime soon.

Mama's Family beat the Cup in the ratings

On Saturday, a rerun of "Mama's Family" and a show called "Build a Better Burger" both had better ratings than the Stanley Cup finals game that was on.

The game was the lowest rated show ever in the history of primetime network television*.

This is why the NHL is embracing any technology that might help.

* - Ratings facts from one of this week's Pardon the Interruption episodes on ESPN.

Re:Um yeah....about that

I'm sure someone must watch televised hockey, or why are they putting hockey teams in southern states?
I'm hoping the NFL accepts this tech. It'd be nice to get around local TV blackouts without having to rig ticket sales.

Re:Um yeah....about that

It really depends on where you are, too. The upper midwest states are heavy into hockey of all levels. MN broadcasts its highschool hockey tournament live, for example (which lasts about a week). Until I moved from MN, I had no idea NHL wasn't on par with the NFL and MLB in terms of viewership in the US.

Re:Um yeah....about that

You misspelled "trying to promote." HTH.

Seriously though, hockey is a great exhilerating sport to watch live. You don't even have to know anything about it. It's a ballet of finely controlled aggression. It's John Woo on ice with sticks instead of guns. On tv, you have to know the game. The puck is so small and fast, the reactions are lighting quick the game is extremely hard to produce, and the experience of watching the game changes. You the viewer have to infer the possibilities of what you can't see, developing a accurate expectation to get a similar buzz of intensity from the game. Does that mean I watch the NHL no I don't. I watch minor league hockey, because I can go to those games.

Re:Um yeah....about that

Well, there are about 30 million Canadians that would have to strongly disagree. Oh, but I forgot, the world does not exist outside of the United States. All sarcasm aside, Hockey Night in Canada, the regular Saturday night hockey program carried by CBC is so popular that the ad revenues from that program alone basically carry the entire network. Don Cherry and Ron Mclean, the shows hosts, their salaries rival that of the top news anchor on the network - and may have even surpassed it.

Re:Wait...

the internet is not made of pipes... it's made of TUBES!!