Quote:
Originally Posted by nobles_point
That’s true. I think it’s a way for the NHL to offer more options to NBC to extract what they both want from the IOC. I think it’s probably unlikely & an idle threat. The World Cup in 2016 wasn’t the monolith money maker the NHL thought it could be.
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Speculation;
I wonder if this might be a way to find a compromise: Let the NHL run the tournament parallel to the Olympics, in the NA, and make it a part of the Olympics (meaning the winner gets crowned Olympic gold medalists etc.)
There's been talk about splitting up the overgrown Olympics anyway. At least in theory everybody could get what they want. IOC, NHL and NHLPA could split the revenue, the tournament gets a huge publicity boost from the Olympic brand, players would get to play for Olympic medals, and NHL gets to showcase itself and run games in prime time in the NA.
This would allow the IOC to explain to other sports why hockey is an exception. They could pass this off as a unique experiment at least once or twice.