According to David Shoalts, the people at Bell/TSN may have been over confident and did not show Bettman the proper respect.
Separate sources say when negotiations opened between the NHL and TSN to extend its contract for the broadcast rights in Canada, executives from the all-sports cable network and its parent company could have showed NHL commissioner Gary Bettman a little more respect. Instead, sources say, the message delivered to Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly was TSN carried the NHL’s water for many years and the network was prepared to pay only so much to carry on the relationship – so the league should sit down and sign a contract.
For example, sources say, BCE president and chief executive officer George Cope never became involved in the negotiations. At the same time, Rogers president and CEO Nadir Mohamed played a “very†important role in the talks, according to someone close to Bettman. Those who know Bettman say he has a keen idea of how important the NHL is to certain businesses and markets.
Also, Bettman takes a dim view of those who do not share that view – especially those who are supposed to be partners of the league.
Anyone who thinks otherwise should look back to the summer of 2005, when the NHL ended its lockout of the players and ESPN’s cable television contract for games in the United States expired. With no other bidders in sight, ESPN offered Bettman $30-million (U.S.) per season for the rights, down from $70-million, and was not exactly polite about it.
Bettman told the network to stuff it and was widely criticized for handing the U.S. rights package to Comcast Corp.’s Outdoor Life Network (which morphed into Versus before Comcast bought NBC Universal and renamed the channel NBCSN). Bettman later parlayed that relationship into the NHL’s current U.S. TV deal with NBC for 10 years at a total of $2-billion.
In other words, as many a negotiator can tell you: you trifle with Bettman at your peril. He is a merciless, smart negotiator who never forgets a slight.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/spor...nhl/article15647965/?cmpid=rss1&click=dlvr.itFor example, sources say, BCE president and chief executive officer George Cope never became involved in the negotiations. At the same time, Rogers president and CEO Nadir Mohamed played a “very†important role in the talks, according to someone close to Bettman. Those who know Bettman say he has a keen idea of how important the NHL is to certain businesses and markets.
Also, Bettman takes a dim view of those who do not share that view – especially those who are supposed to be partners of the league.
Anyone who thinks otherwise should look back to the summer of 2005, when the NHL ended its lockout of the players and ESPN’s cable television contract for games in the United States expired. With no other bidders in sight, ESPN offered Bettman $30-million (U.S.) per season for the rights, down from $70-million, and was not exactly polite about it.
Bettman told the network to stuff it and was widely criticized for handing the U.S. rights package to Comcast Corp.’s Outdoor Life Network (which morphed into Versus before Comcast bought NBC Universal and renamed the channel NBCSN). Bettman later parlayed that relationship into the NHL’s current U.S. TV deal with NBC for 10 years at a total of $2-billion.
In other words, as many a negotiator can tell you: you trifle with Bettman at your peril. He is a merciless, smart negotiator who never forgets a slight.
Sportsnet has more channels than TSN and Sportsnet is just as available as TSN. If you're a Rogers customer most of the Sportsnet channels are included in a lower tier where as TSN and TSN HD cost extra.
