[News] "The Kraken gambled by creating their own TV network. Here’s how it’s paying off"

[Yeah_Baby]

Kraken Hockey Network launched this fall, removing a barrier to entry for potential, frustrated viewers. The NHL’s newest franchise assembled an enviable broadcast team to teach the Seattle market about hockey, but few students were consistently showing up, hindered, at least in part, by rising costs.

So the Kraken organization took a gamble on a more hands-on approach.
“We’re kind of meeting fans where they are,” KHN producer Ryan Schaber said. “The old model of RSNs (regional sports networks) doesn’t necessarily do that anymore. That way of consuming television is rapidly falling by the wayside.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/sports/...box=1732296284

[Coach]

Honestly, I think hockey might be afraid to find out how few viewers they actually have. I think the $ value of the most recent Rogers deals are WAY overblown and that if the switch needs to be made to team by team PPV like it seems like it might, they'll find out fast how much the whole league was propped up by media deals that didn't match the revenue intake for those channels.

They really need a streaming service to buy out the whole league rights. They should have been shopping it after the last deal instead of re-upping with a dying product.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Coach

Honestly, I think hockey might be afraid to find out how few viewers they actually have. I think the $ value of the most recent Rogers deals are WAY overblown and that if the switch needs to be made to team by team PPV like it seems like it might, they'll find out fast how much the whole league was propped up by media deals that didn't match the revenue intake for those channels.

They really need a streaming service to buy out the whole league rights. They should have been shopping it after the last deal instead of re-upping with a dying product.

So the dumb money is over in streaming?

[ripTDR]

I've always had the belief of paying around $20 per stream for any NHL game whenever I want. I did Sportsnet for a couple of years and it sucked bigtime. I don't have TV cable and the streaming options suck. Somebody has to do something better

[Locke]

Its an interesting idea. It could go in a number of different directions though, however I'm not sure Hockey has enough viewership to make it work and, most North American sports are collaborative as opposed to competitive.

For instance they dont want people to be able to subscribe to their favourite team, they want them to subscribe to the whole league and have the revenues distributed evenly.

[Josh]

This was done out of necessity, they used to be on root sports (owned by the Mariners). Root Sports has terrible distribution throughout the area (No DirectTV and only streaming on Fubo) Comcast who is the regional cable provider here put them in a much more expensive tier as well.

Hard to continue building your fanbase when very few can watch it on TV. I'm hoping that Root implodes so I can start watching Mariners games locally. On a side note our family used to go to a lot of Cannons games in the late 80's/early 90's, it was really neat to watch some of those great Mariners come through Calgary!

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Shazam

So the dumb money is over in streaming?

I wouldn't say that. But there's a lot more of it and they NEED to produce content. Live sports may be a good way to lure in more subscribers that aren't already on their platforms, while also giving them content they don't really need to produce or innovate.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by ripTDR

I've always had the belief of paying around $20 per stream for any NHL game whenever I want. I did Sportsnet for a couple of years and it sucked bigtime. I don't have TV cable and the streaming options suck. Somebody has to do something better

Like you'd be willing to pay $20 per game you watch? That's insane. The number of people willing to do that regularly would be in the dozens. Fans would pay over $1600 a year just watch their own team before they even watch other interesting games.

[SebC]

What the Kraken are doing sounds all well and good, but the real "win" is finding a sucker to overpay you.

[MrMike]

I welcome Amazon as our new TV overlords, are they not based out of Seattle?

[Flamesguy_SJ]

I was an early subscriber to NHL Gamecentre a couple years before the Rogers deal kicked in and, honestly, it rocked! The first year with Rogers was pretty good (they heavily promoted that they removed all blackouts), and then they just slowly killed it and eventually replaced it with SN Now which stinks.

[tripin_billie]

Down in the States, the move to ESPN was one of the best things that's happened. I was worried at first because the NHL killed their NHL.tv product and I didn't think the ESPN replacement would be good. Turns out, it just saved me a couple hundred bucks a year because all the non-local NHL games come for free with Disney+/ ESPN+ which I already had through Hulu. The streams are significantly more reliable and higher frame rate than NHL.tv.



Long story short, at least in the States, the NHL product value is essentially that of a free pack in on your existing streaming product. Sad, but the end result has been great quality streams.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Coach

I wouldn't say that. But there's a lot more of it and they NEED to produce content. Live sports may be a good way to lure in more subscribers that aren't already on their platforms, while also giving them content they don't really need to produce or innovate.

If hockey is so niche that there's hardly any viewers for it right now - which is what you said - what difference do you think it'll make being on Netflix, which presumably they'll pay at least what Rogers did back in the day?

[Strange Brew]

PPV model never likely to work IMO. Too many games and sports on at the same time. When faced with the choice of an individual game, even at a low price point, people are just going to say no thanks.

[Coach]

Originally Posted by Shazam

If hockey is so niche that there's hardly any viewers for it right now - which is what you said - what difference do you think it'll make being on Netflix, which presumably they'll pay at least what Rogers did back in the day?

I don't think it's anymore niche than it's always been. I don't really think it will make much of a difference being on a streamer outside of capturing someone like me more often, who wont pay for cable, steals a stream if I want to watch, is already paying for a few streamers (ie likely have the service already). If I wasn't already paying for any of Disney, Apple, Amazon or Netflix, and they had all the NHL on it, I'd get their service. I may even pay an extra $2-5 monthly premium.

Honestly, I don't think they would have the same or better deal as Rogers in the future. I think the NHL knows the Roger's deal is too rich. It's bleeding them dry it's obviously too rich. I think their next contract isn't as lucrative and honestly, I think all major sports are on a bubble. Regular people can't afford to go, buy merch, sports packages, anything, network TV is dying, and theyre all tied up in it. And yet salaries and cap get higher and higher. The only solution they seem to come up with is charge more for tickets and merch, pricing out even more people (not to mention actually stealing from the tax bases of their fans to fund their stupidly overpriced arenas). The ONLY thing propping it up is media deals. And if you can get ACTUAL data on viewing on a per-game/per-team basis like they can via a stream (a regular broadcaster can't get this data), I think many teams (not just NHL teams) and yeah a more niche league like the NHL might put themselves in a bad position when they find out how many eyeballs are actually on the screen at once.

How many people do you think actually watch a Flames game all the way through? A few thousand? How many watch all of them? A few hundred? Is it enough to charge them each $2-5/game and have a profit? I would say definitely not. If I'm Amazon, I'm asking what are full NHL rights actually worth? Not, what did some idiot company thats going bankrupt and product is so bad we put on a better one with one try paid last time.

[SutterBrother]

Yo-ho-hooo.

(I'd pay to watch every game if they'd let me. But they just don't want my money.)

ALL ABOARD!

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by jayswin

Like you'd be willing to pay $20 per game you watch? That's insane. The number of people willing to do that regularly would be in the dozens. Fans would pay over $1600 a year just watch their own team before they even watch other interesting games.

LOL exactly. I'm pretty dedicated, but I'm not paying PPV prices to watch regular season hockey games.

This current model isn't going away because there's no viable alternative for restaurants, bars and the average joe in his house to consume games and advertising.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Coach

I don't think it's anymore niche than it's always been. I don't really think it will make much of a difference being on a streamer outside of capturing someone like me more often, who wont pay for cable, steals a stream if I want to watch, is already paying for a few streamers (ie likely have the service already). If I wasn't already paying for any of Disney, Apple, Amazon or Netflix, and they had all the NHL on it, I'd get their service. I may even pay an extra $2-5 monthly premium.

Honestly, I don't think they would have the same or better deal as Rogers in the future. I think the NHL knows the Roger's deal is too rich. It's bleeding them dry it's obviously too rich. I think their next contract isn't as lucrative and honestly, I think all major sports are on a bubble. Regular people can't afford to go, buy merch, sports packages, anything, network TV is dying, and theyre all tied up in it. And yet salaries and cap get higher and higher. The only solution they seem to come up with is charge more for tickets and merch, pricing out even more people (not to mention actually stealing from the tax bases of their fans to fund their stupidly overpriced arenas). The ONLY thing propping it up is media deals. And if you can get ACTUAL data on viewing on a per-game/per-team basis like they can via a stream (a regular broadcaster can't get this data), I think many teams (not just NHL teams) and yeah a more niche league like the NHL might put themselves in a bad position when they find out how many eyeballs are actually on the screen at once.

How many people do you think actually watch a Flames game all the way through? A few thousand? How many watch all of them? A few hundred? Is it enough to charge them each $2-5/game and have a profit? I would say definitely not. If I'm Amazon, I'm asking what are full NHL rights actually worth? Not, what did some idiot company thats going bankrupt and product is so bad we put on a better one with one try paid last time.

So you're saying that the next deal will be for a lot less money, regardless of who buys the rights? I mean I'm okay with that, mostly because it ain't my money buying the rights.

I just don't see the NHL agreeing to that. Maybe the same amount of money as the last deal or just a bit more, not accounting for inflation.

[Coach]

I don’t think it will be their choice, they just won’t get a higher bid. It doesn’t matter what someone else paid for it before.

People talk about the cap like it’s the housing market or something that can only go up. But revenue can decrease.