http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2011/04/11/Media/NHL-TV.aspx
On October 27, the topic of sport and mass media was discussed and there was one topic that became a reocurring thought. As professional leagues and events have grown in importantce and popularity, so has the demand to televise and broadcast all of these different games and events.
Sport and media match hand in hand together. Without media, sport has no way for the games to be viewed, analyzed, discussed, or reported on for everyone whos interested to see. Without sport, the media loses one of their more popular followings and a large percentage of their business would disappear because of it. So in order for these games to be televised and distributed nationally or in some cases internationally, networks have to bid on the rights to broadcast these leagues and events. And in some cases, the bidding can grow to quite a large fee.
Take the National Hockey League for example. Their contract with NBC Comcast was set to expire after this season and thus a bidding war began in order for networks to exclusively televise hockey. Hockey had grown in popularity ever since the NHL Lockout ended in 2004, so the NHL was in a position they had never truly been in before as networks were throwing out lucrative sums of money and distribution perks in order to gain their rights. It eventually came down to the NHL either re-signing with NBC Comcast or signing with ESPN. While many critics felt that ESPN would've created an even larger amount of exposure, the NHL instead decided to re-sign with NBC Comcast on a 10 year, 2 billion dollar contract.
Coakley provides the argument that television revenues are a large means for how teams and leagues generate income. While Coakley's point is considered to be spot-on, the fact that large networks with plenty of programming to choose from have to give out a large portion of money to televise sports is insane. The argument was always that sport needs media and media doesn't always need sport. However if that's the case, then why is the media bidding large numbers of money for something they don't necessarily need?
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