Gary Bettman and the NHL Hint at Potential End of Games on Cable Television
Gary Bettman and the NHL hinted at the potential end of games on cable television, last night, ahead of the first edition of Amazon's Prime Monday Night Hockey.
Streaming services are now a part of many households in Canada, and the trend doesn't seem to fade away. This isn't good for the Canadian cable industry, as they see platforms such as Netflix, Disney+ or Amazon Prime take away their viewers.
Amazon was quick to jump on that opportunity and started to broadcast NFL, NBA, and MLB games recently. Last season, for the first time, they aired NHL games.
The Montreal Canadiens faced the Pittsburgh Penguins yesterday at the Bell Center. Ahead of the game, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman held a press conference.
He stated many times that games attract more viewers on Prime than on cable, per NHL reporter Louis Jean.
Here's what he shared on X:
Bettman continued, saying the world is moving away from traditional cable:
Later, during an intermission interview, ironically aired on traditional cable, Bettman was asked to say if he thought the NHL was abandoning the anglophone fans accustomed to watching games on cable and had the same answer:
"The world is moving away from cable, the whole planet is changing!"
After Bettman's declarations, it wouldn't be surprising that in a few years, most of the NHL games will only be broadcasted on Prime, at the traditional cable's demise.
Even though more people are subscribed to Prime than cable, and some channels were opened to sell their rights to Amazon, we can't deny that removing games from CBC, TSN, or RDS (in French), will prevent a lot of fans who aren't used to modern streaming services from following the NHL.
| POLL | ||
Do you think the NHL would make the right move by broadcasting their games on Prime over the traditional cable? | ||
| Yes | 97 | 21.1 % |
| No | 362 | 78.9 % |
| List of polls | ||
