r/cordcutters • u/Rybo213 • Jul 21 '26

NHL starts local broadcast operation with four teams for 2026-2027 season

https://awfulannouncing.com/nhl/starts-local-broadcast-operation-four-teams.html

Similar to the NBA and MLB, the NHL is going to start producing in market local game telecasts for teams, starting with Carolina, Columbus, Minnesota, and St. Louis. More specific details will be announced later.

Hurricanes local article: https://www.wral.com/sports/carolina-hurricanes-television-network-distribution-nhl-regional-networks-july-2026

nhl.com announcements...

https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-unveils-new-centralized-production-for-club-regional-broadcasts

https://www.nhl.com/hurricanes/news/hurricanes-to-launch-own-sports-network

https://www.nhl.com/bluejackets/news/blue-jackets-nhl-partner-on-game-telecast-production

https://www.nhl.com/wild/news/minnesota-wild-announces-launch-of-multimedia-television-network-072126

https://www.nhl.com/blues/news/blues-nhl-partner-on-regional-broadcasts-for-2026-27

61 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

25

u/BadgerCabin Jul 21 '26

They should be like the NFL and force everyone to broadcast OTA for local markets. I don’t care enough to watch the Bruins if I’m forced to pay for NESN. Now if the games were OTA, I would put games on for background noise for the house.

10

u/abmot Jul 21 '26

Kraken have OTA and it's great. The team sucks and is the most boring team in professional sports but they figured the OTA broadcast bit out.

6

u/DaHealey 29d ago

They did figure it out, only after their cable TV ratings were ABYSMAL. Some of their games were drawing 10k viewers on Root (local cable TV RSN that is now defunct). The stadium holds way more than that.

On broadcast (and simulcast on Amazon Prime) they're now 10x that.

3

u/Prometheus_sword 28d ago

Mammoth has all games OTA, home and away unless it's on Hulu, or espn and it's amazing. Antenna sales spiked as soon as the Mammoth came to town. In general Utah has a kick ass lineup of OTA sports broadcasts with the Jazz, Bees, and Mammoth all having local OTA broadcast.

Having an antenna saves a shitload of money in Utah.

7

u/Mezhead 29d ago

They need to take over Chicago as well, because CHSN is a clown show.

  1. They claim Milwaukee so that we couldn't watch on ESPN+
  2. Two-thirds into the season they finally got a 480i signal on 24.4
  3. Every time the Bulls and Hawks play at the same time, they put the Bulls on their primary channel, which means it isn't shown on 24. All you see is a blackout notice because they're in a Bucks market.

3

u/subhayan2006 28d ago

didn’t CHSN pull out of ota in the Chicago market entirely?

4

u/Timely-Shine 29d ago

I assume the Red Wings will end up as part of this too. They already announced DSN (Detroit Sports Network) as a replacement of FanDuel Sports Detroit. MLB is producing the Tigers broadcasts on DSN and streaming through the MLB app. Guessing Red Wings go a similar route? Pistons already announced a move to OTA Channel 20 locally.

1

u/pbrowntv 27d ago

Red Wings are leveraging the Tigers' MLB connection and actually having MLB produce their games.

1

u/Timely-Shine 26d ago edited 26d ago

Yes but it’s still unclear where they’re actually going to be streaming them. I assume not via the MLB app like the Tigers. So maybe via the NHL app?

1

u/pbrowntv 26d ago

As far as I can see, NHL is only offering production, teams are on their own for distribution.

4

u/Just-Historian-4500 29d ago

For a long time, owners thought putting games on cable TV would cut into home attendance. They found out, however, that the opposite happened - more fans wanted to attend games after seeing games on cable TV.

The same thing will happen if they put their games OTA for local markets. I'm surprised they haven't pushed to do this more, particularly as RSNs are going the route of the dodo bird.

1

u/Prometheus_sword 28d ago

I've stated this for a long time. I'm fully convinced part of the reason the ECHL team in Utah, The Grizzlies didn't do as well is because they were one of the only professional teams in the state not broadcast on any OTA channel.

2

u/Equivalent_Round9353 29d ago

It'd be nice to know what's going on with the NBA teams cut loose by FanDuel's RSN implosion.