When Bettman was in town a few months ago, he even mentioned that the next round of rights contracts will likely include new distribution channels like Hulu or Google/YouTube instead of just NBC or ESPN. NBC's current deal ends after the 2020-21 season.
The NHL is also a minority owner of BAMTECH, which is a digital streaming technology company that was originally spun-off from the MLB's streaming service. Now, Disney is the majority owner with the NHL and MLB as minority owners. The technology is used by many of the big live-streaming media companies.
At some point, the NHL could just decide to leave the traditional distribution channels behind and run everything themselves. It probably won't happen when NBC's contract is up in 3 years, but might by the time the Rogers deal expires.
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