AT THE BUZZER
Sportsnet president Scott Moore reflects on a tough year in hockey and what changes might come,
The president of Sportsnet and NHL properties at Rogers looks back on a tough year With no Canadian teams, the NHL playoffs are a miserable capper on a tough year for Sportsnet, which has seen its hockey ratings drop and has taken a financial hit from dropping ad rates.
The final numbers on the season’s ratings are still being tallied, but as the playoff schedule is announced, Scott Moore, president of Sportsnet and NHL properties at Rogers, had a chat about the year that was and what changes might come.
The company is still finalizing some previously announced job cuts and potentially looking at producing games remotely in order to cut costs next year. (This has been condensed and edited for clarity.)
What is the impact of having no Canadian teams in the NHL playoffs?
First, let’s look at it as if the glass is half full. This is an opportunity for us to take a slightly different approach to the NHL playoffs. I think viewers will notice us taking a broader view of the tournament. There are no shortages of storylines, and some of them will catch fire.
Will it be the same as having Canadian teams in the playoffs? No, it’s never the same when you don’t have home rooting interests. I don’t expect it happening again during the course of this (12-year) deal. At least I certainly hope not.
I know you re-evaluate at the end of each year. What might change by next season?
We recently undertook the decision to put all of our production under one umbrella, under Rob Corte (vice-president of Sportsnet & NHL Production, Rogers), to oversee all of our sports broadcasts, so I think I need to give him some time to figure out how he wants to do things.
But another interesting challenge for us, and the entire sports industry, is if you look at how we produce television, it really hasn’t changed that much in the past 30 years. We’re looking at something called “remote from home,” which is having more production units based in Toronto and having the feeds come in. That is something that has been done during the Olympics. There are some cost savings in travel and other synergies. We have to look at ways of both increasing our revenues and adjusting our cost base.
Are you looking at totally remotely calling the games?
I won’t say definitively, because you never know, but it’s my hope that we would never bring the commentators back to Toronto to call games. I think in order to get the best play-by-play and best feel for the game, the commentators have to be at the rink. That’s an option, but it’s not as attractive an option for me as having producers and directors sitting in a control room in Toronto.
If it is saving us money and the viewer would never know the difference, we’d consider it. If we start saving money and the viewer does notice the difference, then we’d start second guessing that.
There are rumours the poor performance might lead to more job cuts.
We announced in January that we were looking at a number of job cuts across all the media divisions. That was due to a number of factors, including the same challenges that other media companies are facing. We have not completed that and there still are some adjustments to be made. We don’t know what those are, but those will be completed sometime early in the summer.
With the underperformance of the deal so far, do you think you might have overestimated the draw of hockey?
That’s an interesting question with the changing demographic in this country, but I don’t think you can overestimate it.
I’m a Raptors fan. I love seeing how well the Raptors are doing. The Raptors are having the best season in their history. The Leafs are having the worst season in their history.
The Leafs on Saturday night outdrew the Raptors three to one. So yes, the demographics are changing, but hockey is still king in this country.