TORONTO – In hockey-mad Canada, the continuing NHL lockout has turned the pro league toxic with fed-up hockey fans. But what about broadcasters and NHL sponsors now facing cancelled TV games through December 30 during stalled labour talks?
“We miss it every night that we don’t have a live game. We miss the audience that it brings to our network,” TSN president Stewart Johnston, told Cartt.ca. On weekends, the sports channel had offset much of the impact of the NHL lockout by counter-programming CFL games against Hockey Night in Canada’s older games on the CBC.
Stewart said the real crunch has come when replacing TSN's Wednesday Night Hockey telecasts with basketball games. “Midweek, we certainly are feeling the pain. Those audiences are led into our news broadcasts, and they don’t have that big driver in hockey,” he added.
Kenneth Wong, a marketing professor at Queen's University, said Canadian networks have lost revenue not airing live NHL games and have dropped ad rates for replacement shows.
And it’s not chump change.
The CBC stands to lose key ad revenue, most of it earned during the Stanley Cup playoffs, if the NHL cancels the entire 2012-13 season. “Hockey Night in Canada brings large, diverse, multi-generational audiences like few programs anywhere can, so yes the absence of hockey on CBC has had an impact on audience ratings,” Jeffrey Orridge, executive director of CBC sports properties, said of losing live games on Saturday night, long the top ratings winner for the pubcaster.
The NHL eventually will be back in action, but there’s uncertainty over how quickly angry or apathetic Canadian fans will return to their TV sets for live games.
“The die-hard fans will always return,” Wong said. But the NHL stands to lose casual Canadian TV hockey viewers – those who watch the occasional game or one they catch while surfing channels – the longer the fan-alienating labour strife continues. “If the lockout goes for a week or a month, fans stay interested. But if its longer, and watching the NHL stops being a habit, then the NHL is in trouble,” he added.
And what about NHL sponsors that look to the league’s fan base to buy their products? “To a man, they’re frustrated,” said Brian Cooper, CEO of S&E Sponsorship, who represents league sponsors like Canadian Tire, Boston Pizza and Bank of Nova Scotia.
The sponsors will be compensated on a pro-rata basis by the league and individual teams for the lockout inconvenience, but lost NHL games means lost exposure for major brands, which degrades the league’s brand equity for marketers. “Now there’s a negative light shone on the NHL brand for such a long period of time, with protracted negotiations that are in the public eye every day,” Cooper argued.
NHL COO John Collins, who has met with key league sponsors during the lockout to ease their frustration, was not available for comment. But an NHL spokesman said the league has kept its sponsors in the loop, “and while some have had to make alternative short term plans, they remain supportive of the league long term."
Most notably, NHL sponsor Kraft Canada pulled its funding for the CBC’s Kraft Hockeyville program for 2013, and instead gave $1 million to support minor hockey associations countrywide.
That is ominous, insists Queen University’s Wong, because Canadians feel far more love for hockey as a game, than for the NHL.
And with TSN airing junior hockey games on Friday nights and Sportsnet featuring American Hockey League games on Saturday nights, local hockey fans could quickly gravitate to a new and different TV product. “If Canadians rally around a non-NHL product, the league is in trouble,” he said.
