BELL GLOBEMEDIA BEAST BREAKS BANK TO GET HOCKEY BROADCAST RIGHTS

Earlier, there was mention here of how Hockey Night in Canada is going to offer Saturday tripleheaders and more regional broadcasts in the eastern part of the country next season.

Oops. Look like I'm a little late on the big HNIC-related story of the day. The Globe and Mail's William Houston is reporting that Bell Globemedia is likely to offer $1.4 billion Cdn over 10 years to put NHL hockey on CTV and TSN once the CBC's current deal expires after the '07-08 season. Quoth Houston:

That would be for everything: Canadian English-language broadcast rights, cable rights, French-language rights and ownership of Internet streaming.

Marketing magazine (subscriber content only; reader Matt Moore was kind enough to e-mail a full story to me, and for that I am grateful) reports that the rumoured offer amounts to close to $50 million a year more than the league's current deals with publicly owned CBC, TSN and its French-language sister network RDS.

It's long been expected that Bell Globemedia would start to get really aggressive in going after HNIC. It's the amount they're willing to pay that's a little staggering.

The X factor is the value of the Internet streaming. It's not worth much now, but it will be in a decade's time. My friend Greg Hughes knows far, far more about this technology stuff than I do, but itrevenues from Internet broadcasting is going to further impact how we watch big-time sports.

(This is off on another tangent, but itmay even change how they're played. When Internet streaming really takes off and local broadcasts aren't the be-all end-all anymore, that revenue gap between the New York Yankees and Kansas City Royals may not be be so large.)

Previous:
Feeding Hockey To The Bell Globemedia Beast (July 16)
I'll Tell Ya What (June 6)

One more thing . . .

Another business-of-sports matter that I'm late to the game on: Major League Baseball got shut out in court this week when it tried to get a judge to rule that companies who run fantasy leagues should pay a price for the use of their statistics. Thank goodness that was the ruling, otherwise I would have to start paying Bud Selig a royalty every time I rhymed off a baseball stat in a feeble attempt to impress somebody. (It doesn't happen as often as it used to; maybe The Geek is starting to get soft in his old age.)

OK, make that two . . .

It's got a bit of an otherworldly quality to it, considering how things have gone for the Blue Jays of late: Did Theodore Lilly really help the Jays shut out the Twins last night? They're only seven games back in the wild-card race, and if they can... No. Perish the thought. The playoffs are out of reach.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.