John Kosner on the NHL in Lake Tahoe for Barrett Sports Media
Original Article: Barrett Sports Media, by Seth Everett, February 26th, 2021
Was the NHL’s great success also a great failure?
“You can’t have success if you don’t risk failure,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman commented to Mike Tirico on Saturday as the sun made the league’s most picturesque outdoor game unplayable.
Instead of a 3 pm eastern time NBC telecast, the last two periods of the game between the Colorado Avalanche and Vegas Golden Knights was moved off NBC to the lame-duck NBC Sports Network at midnight EST. Sunday’s game between the Boston Bruins and Philadelphia Flyers moved from 3 pm to 2 pm to then 7 pm and back to NBCSN.
“I still think it was a big success given how unique it was once the ice situation was squared away,” NESN announcer Billy Jaffe told me. “How majestic it was, is what made it successful.”
The pictures alone were breathtaking. I found myself glued to the television. Unlike the 31 previous outdoor games, no fans could attend. They didn’t even build stands. Television was the only way to expose that scene to the masses.
Saturday’s first period averaged 1.398 million viewers on NBC. The final two periods on NBCSN averaged 394,000 viewers. That’s more than a million fewer viewers after the delay.
“The sunny weather and its impact on the weather was a bad break for the NHL in terms of lost windows and audience on NBC,” said John Kosner, President Kosner Media and former head of digital media at ESPN. “However, the weekend was a spectacle, it generated tons of attention and coverage and did produce very big audiences for NBCSN.”
“I thought it was spectacular,” NHL Network senior reporter EJ Hradek told me. “I think every time they go play an outdoor game there are always risks. I’ve covered almost all of them. I was not at this one, unfortunately, because nobody was really at this one. I’ve been in situations where games are moved and changed.”
Going into the weekend, the NHL’s decision to try to play at Lake Tahoe was one of the more innovative ones I’d seen. Certainly, during the year-long pandemic, it’s one of the most out-of-the-box ideas from any sport. Still, if a million people could not see the end of the game, what was it all done for?
“People will always talk about the sunny weather that delayed the NHL in Lake Tahoe,” said Kosner. “That’s not all bad in my book!”
“We’re in such a crazy unique environment right now that I think anything different is good. It’s worth risk-taking, but it’s also gonna have challenges presented. But I think when it was all said and done, especially the Flyers and Bruins showed itself beautifully.”
The Sunday night game between the Flyers and Bruins averaged 1 million viewers. The afternoon NBC replaced the game with a Washington Capitals-New Jersey Devils that only averaged 750,000 viewers. The debate rages how many more people would have watched a Lake Tahoe afternoon game on that Sunday.
The NHL was being bold in designing this unique event. Previous NHL outdoor games have been held in football or baseball stadiums with over 50,000 people.
“I still enjoyed the pageantry,” Jaffe added. “The whole ‘Mystery, Alaska’ type thing about it. But on the business side, which I’m not really qualified to speak about. I’m sure it wasn’t as much of a success as it could have been.”
One other issue with the event. The Colorado Avalanche uniforms received tons of praise for their version of the “Reverse Retro” jersey that every team has. The Avs wore the logo of their previous incarnation, the Quebec Nordiques. The Nordiques left Quebec in 1995 and became the Avalanche, winning the Stanley Cup in their first season in Denver.
I think the decision to use that logo, and for NBC to put that logo in their graphics is a direct insult to the fans in Quebec. Their team was taken from them. That does not celebrate their history. It rubs salt in the wound.
The Avalanche are not the only team that uses a previous incarnation of the franchise. The Carolina Hurricanes are wearing the Hartford Whalers logo as their Reverse Retro jersey. One Hartford fan told me it reminds him of the departure, a wound that is not fully healed.
I suggested that if the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder wore Seattle SuperSonics uniforms for some kind of retro night, there would be a legitimate mutiny in the Pacific Northwest. Relocation is a sad story in sports, and celebrating it, sends the wrong message.
“I mean, it is the same franchise,” Hradek said. “The franchise was sold and moved. I didn’t live in Hartford. I didn’t live in Quebec City. I could only tell you as a hockey fan. I mean, I enjoy seeing those jerseys because I don’t take offense to them, but again, I can’t speak for a fan in Hartford or a fan in Quebec City.”
The Avalanche could have used the old Colorado Rockies, hockey team. That franchise played in Denver but left to go to New Jersey in 1982. The difference is that Denver got a new team. The Wild honor the North Stars, but again nobody is left in the cold.
All in all, I applaud the NHL for trying the Lake Tahoe experience. Unfortunately, it had to hurt to lose a million viewers. If a picture is worth a thousand words then Lake Tahoe can write its own novel.
