Shame on USA networks...

[kings13]

Next year would be the perfect time to give the Juniors a shot on national TV or larger regional coverage. It's just to easy to pitch.

"Watch team USA defend its gold at home in Grand Forks, North Dakota." You can sell almost anything in the states if you give it enough national flavor.

Too bad it's prime Bowl season and will never happen

 

[chicpea*]

Too bad it's prime Bowl season and will never happen

Are you serious! I never thought of that but you may be right. That would really suck for you guys.

 

[Rob]

Next year would be the perfect time to give the Juniors a shot on national TV or larger regional coverage. It's just to easy to pitch.

"Watch team USA defend its gold at home in Grand Forks, North Dakota." You can sell almost anything in the states if you give it enough national flavor.

There might be something else working in their favor. The NHL will probably be lockedout. If the games are to be televised in the US it has to be next years tournament. Everything is there. Home ice, a lack of hockey on TV, and they will be defending champs.

Of course Grand Forks, ND isn't exactly a media hotbed.

 

[Zine]

OMG!!! They're actually showing the game highlights on ESPN News.
That and on NHL Tonight.

 

[southpaw]

You guys have to realize that ESPN is a business, not some TV station there to show whatever people say they want. It costs a lot of money to buy the rights for the WJC tournament, even for one game. In canada, its an easy decision to buy the rights, because there is such a wide audience. However, in the US, even in some of the northern parts (NE and NW), hockey is not that big of a thing. There are pockets throughout the country (MN, Michigan) however that isn't enough to warrant paying a ton of money to buy the rights.

It is tough to sell advertising to companies, when you can't promise them a lot of viewers. It definitely isn't a sound business decision to spend more money than you are going to make, just to please a small amount of fans. Those fans are still going to watch ESPN, because its the only game out there.

With the Billiard, cheerleading and spelling bee competitions, ESPN needs to fill time. They can pay cheap ass money, gain a larger market audience and sell some specific advertising, or they can run re-runs that people will be bored of and most like won't get any additional viewership. Its all about money, if you think differently, then you'll be waiting for the WJC to be aired for a while.

 

[RI Canuck]

The real question is, will they show the World Championships this summer?

And Rabid Ranger is right, if you are a hockey fan in the US a satellite dish is imperitive

ESPN said that they would show the games in August but I doubt it because they also said they would show games every Thrusday night and there has not one been any on Thursdays for three weeks now.
They don't even put hockey on Sportscenter anymore.

 

[ceber]

You guys have to realize that ESPN is a business, not some TV station there to show whatever people say they want. It costs a lot of money to buy the rights for the WJC tournament, even for one game. In canada, its an easy decision to buy the rights, because there is such a wide audience. However, in the US, even in some of the northern parts (NE and NW), hockey is not that big of a thing. There are pockets throughout the country (MN, Michigan) however that isn't enough to warrant paying a ton of money to buy the rights.

Makes sense, but I've always wondered this:

money earned by selling rights to US broadcast cheaply enough so a network will buy them: $small amount

money earned by asking so much for US broadcast rights than no network buys them: $0

Doesn't it make sense to sell the rights at a price you can get?

 

[Mr_Hockeytown19]

rights fees?i think disney can afford it

You guys have to realize that ESPN is a business, not some TV station there to show whatever people say they want. It costs a lot of money to buy the rights for the WJC tournament, even for one game. In canada, its an easy decision to buy the rights, because there is such a wide audience. However, in the US, even in some of the northern parts (NE and NW), hockey is not that big of a thing. There are pockets throughout the country (MN, Michigan) however that isn't enough to warrant paying a ton of money to buy the rights.

It is tough to sell advertising to companies, when you can't promise them a lot of viewers. It definitely isn't a sound business decision to spend more money than you are going to make, just to please a small amount of fans. Those fans are still going to watch ESPN, because its the only game out there.

With the Billiard, cheerleading and spelling bee competitions, ESPN needs to fill time. They can pay cheap ass money, gain a larger market audience and sell some specific advertising, or they can run re-runs that people will be bored of and most like won't get any additional viewership. Its all about money, if you think differently, then you'll be waiting for the WJC to be aired for a while.

given the fact espn airs such inane shows as playmakers,worlds strongest man,x-games,womens basketball,pti,6 hours of the SAME sports center-i would think their costs are already pretty low not to mention their anchors besides dan patrick aren't highly paid,a fact i know is true after talking to a detroit radio sports talk guy who knows rich eisin.if espn really wanted to promote the sport of hockey since they hold the national tv contract it would be smart business to televise the wjc to let fans preview future nhl stars.your argument has no legs that its about cost.espn has contracts with every sports league as well as the ncaa that they make money off of.clearly the wjc is a superior product to the ncaa frozen four,more nhlers have played wjc than frozen four.the argument to pay up is more convincing than to not.

 

[nathan]

So...did anyone catch THE WORLD SERIES OF POKER on ESPN?

 

[Sotnos]

You can sell almost anything in the states if you give it enough national flavor.

Being an American yourself, you know this for a fact, right?

Anyway, as mentioned, the game was on CenterIce, so I don't see what the big deal is. There is no way ESPN would go to the expense to send a crew over to Finland for a week and a half to broadcast this. Whatever market there would be for it is pretty much covered by CenterIce subscribers. I'm surprised ESPN mentioned it, they had NOTHING on their website about it early last evening, not that I could see anyway.

 

[chicpea*]

"Watch team USA defend its gold at home in Grand Forks, North Dakota." You can sell almost anything in the states if you give it enough national flavor.

Well, it would really suck if they didn't find a distributor for next year's games. It would suck for the american fans and especially for american hockey in general. There will be no better chance than next year. If I were you guys (americans here) I would forget petitioning ESPN or whatever else passes for sports broadcasting (sorry, couldn't resist) and I would focus solely on HockeyUSA. They must have clout of some sort. Write the NHLPA, the NHL too for that matter - in the long run it'll help their ratings too. But HockeyUSA is the place to petition, harass, and annoy. Anyway, good luck.


p.s. Leafssuck, I thought you were by the way you spelled flavour.
(vote U party, defender of Canada's favoUrite, most honoUrable letter)

 

[chicpea*]

I have shamed the Queen
:p

her kids have done a pretty thorough job already , so I wouldn't worry.

 

[The Slap Shop]

Are you serious! I never thought of that but you may be right. That would really suck for you guys.

I remember 2 years ago there was the Gaylord Hotel Bowl on ESPN2.

WJC would never beat out Bowl Week. They even changed a holiday song to be a Bowl week song.

It's the most wonderful time of the year is the song.

 

[Robert Paulson*]

Those boneheads at ESPN play cheerleading championships, but they ignore the WJCs.

Oh, it gets worse. How about putt-putt championships, or the Scrabble tournaments? How about the dang World Series of Poker re-runs 4 hours a day! They'd rather show that than anything hockey.
I wrote to ESPN.com about how they didn't cover the Heritage Classic, and they responded "The Heritage Classic will be show Saturday, blah blah on ESPN Classic." I was outraged.

 

[Debrincat93]

You guys have to realize that ESPN is a business, not some TV station there to show whatever people say they want. It costs a lot of money to buy the rights for the WJC tournament, even for one game. In canada, its an easy decision to buy the rights, because there is such a wide audience. However, in the US, even in some of the northern parts (NE and NW), hockey is not that big of a thing. There are pockets throughout the country (MN, Michigan) however that isn't enough to warrant paying a ton of money to buy the rights.

It is tough to sell advertising to companies, when you can't promise them a lot of viewers. It definitely isn't a sound business decision to spend more money than you are going to make, just to please a small amount of fans. Those fans are still going to watch ESPN, because its the only game out there.

With the Billiard, cheerleading and spelling bee competitions, ESPN needs to fill time. They can pay cheap ass money, gain a larger market audience and sell some specific advertising, or they can run re-runs that people will be bored of and most like won't get any additional viewership. Its all about money, if you think differently, then you'll be waiting for the WJC to be aired for a while.

By filling time with crap like a cheerleading tournie or a spelling bee doesnt make them anything. Who watches that ****? not many... They would get a bigger audience replaying a game from the night before or key games of the week in those spots then actually putting on garbage like that. Billards can be OK at times and i bet they gain interst, but besides getting a good laugh, no one watches a spelling be, for christ sake, its A SPORTS STATION, not a school station... PLAY SPORTS!

 

[Debrincat93]

Oh, it gets worse. How about putt-putt championships, or the Scrabble tournaments? How about the dang World Series of Poker re-runs 4 hours a day! They'd rather show that than anything hockey.
I wrote to ESPN.com about how they didn't cover the Heritage Classic, and they responded "The Heritage Classic will be show Saturday, blah blah on ESPN Classic." I was outraged.

whens the paper football championship playing? same with the rock-paper-scissors tournie?

thats basically what espn is these days, its sad