McMORRIS INSPIRES, BUT NHL LOSES OUT DURING OLYMPICS
Decision to skip Pyeongchang Games a costly missed opportunity for league
BULLS OF THE WEEK
There are many winners in the business of sport after the first week of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, from figure skating and luge to speedskating and curling (even with the inexplicably bad start from Canada’s Rachel Homan-skipped women’s rink).
And with 13 medals going into the weekend, Canada is on track for its best-ever Olympics performance (with the 26 at Vancouver 2010therecord).
Yet no one hash ada more bullish week than Regina-born slopestyle snowboarder Mark McMorris of Whistler.
His story — from multiple broken bones and life-threatening organ injuries 11 months ago to an Olympic bronze medal in South Korea — is one of the most remarkable and inspirational ever.
BEARS OF THE WEEK
Sure there is plenty of blame to go around on why the right deal wasn’t done to ensure that the NHL was part of the Pyeongchang Winter Games. The IOC played the wrong card — “you’re just like the NBA” — and the IIHF was too little, too late on offers of financial compensation.
And yes, the Games in South Korea lose without the NHL there and Pyeongchang 2018 will be adversely affected on everything from hockey-related television audiences, merchandising and ticket sales.
Yet there is no more bearish player in the business of sport on the international stage this week than the NHL.
Not only is the NHL missing out on its single biggest global marketing showcase in the first of two successive Games in Asia, it is squandering the opportunity to span seven straight Games seamlessly from Nagano 1998 into Beijing 2022 and thereby make the most of the China presence in four years by being in South Korea this time around.
The passing of the torch effect simply won’t be there going into Beijing.
Most ironically, it is suffering from a bad case of television karma. After publicly staking much of its decision to not go to Pyeongchang on the disruption the Olympics cause to the NHL regular season (unlike the NBA, where basketball is played at the Summer Games), the league has gone almost dark in terms of national television exposure in the United States.
NHL TV rights holder NBC is focusing on its role as U.S. Olympics rights holder and, after originally not scheduling any NHL action during the 19 days of Pyeongchang 2018, it has added just two Sunday games beginning at 9 a.m. (last week’s Pittsburgh win over St. Louis and this Sunday’s Flyers-Rangers tilt — a third Sunday game, Blues versus Predators, will go at 9 a.m., hours after the closing ceremony wraps up the Games).
That still means about 20 nationally televised games lost during that time period. In hockey terms, a tournament without the world’s best players is a huge loss. In hockey business terms, it is — as suggested by Postmedia’s Scott Stinson — a “missed opportunity.”
In terms of hockey culture and history, it is shameful. Players, fans, sponsors and media-rights holders will get over it, but when the NHL is quietly hoping that not being in Pyeongchang will inflate the importance of its manufactured World Cup of Hockey on the strength of pentup demand for “best-on-best” come 2020, it’s another reminder that its players and fans will always come second to revenue generation in commissioner Gary Bettman’s NHL, no matter the cost.