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GARY BETTMAN
DON FEHR
JOHN SKIPPER
SCOTT MOORE
SERGE FORTIN
GARY MEAGHER: Good morning everyone. I'd like to introduce who we have on the line with us today. NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, NHL Players Association Executive Director Don Fehr, Scott Moore, president of Sportsnet and NHL properties Rogers and Serge Fortin vice president of TVA Sports. We're also joined by Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, and NHL COO John Collins as well as president of Rogers Sports Keith Pelley.
So we welcome you all to this call and to kick it off we'll hear from each of the five principals for brief remarks, and then we'll go into the Q & A. Thank you.
COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: Good morning, everyone, and thank you for being with us. We are just over 18 months away from the opening face-off of the 2016 World Cup of Hockey, which will be at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto. While there is a tremendous amount of exciting NHL hockey to be played between now and then, every chance we get to make a World Cup announcement brings that special opening night of the World Cup a little bit closer to reality.
As we have discussed, the 2016 World Cup of Hockey will put about 150 of our best players on a global stage. For the players, having an opportunity to compete in a World Cup is a unique experience and opportunity to put their great skills on display.
For fans, we anticipate a remarkable event. As our players trade their NHL jerseys for those of their international representation, the challenge will be to bond as teammates as quickly as possible, to unite in the execution of their coach's game plans, and to find a formula for success in a relatively brief period of time all against outstanding competition.
The hockey will be fantastic. There will be compelling stories to tell and the privilege of presenting those stories from every possible angle will be handled by the rightsholders from whom you'll hear in a moment.
First, let me tell you who they are. I'm pleased to announce on behalf of the National Hockey League and the NHL Players’ Association that ESPN has been awarded the exclusive U.S. media rights to the 2016 World Cup of Hockey. That Sportsnet has been awarded the exclusive English language 2016 media rights in Canada and that TVA has been awarded the exclusive French language 2016 World Cup media rights in Canada.
We are confident that all three of these broadcasters will provide the type of coverage our fans will expect and deserve for an event of this magnitude.
We are excited and looking forward to a spectacular World Cup, and I know the other speakers on this call are eager to share their thoughts starting with my friend, our partner and NHLPA Executive Director, Don Fehr.
DON FEHR: Thanks very much. It's a real privilege for me to be here today speaking on behalf of the NHL players whom I represent. I can say without hesitation that they're really looking forward to this event and are very excited. We share Gary's view that it not only is going to be a fantastic tournament, fantastic hockey, but a fantastic event all together for the fans in the city and everyone involved.
We are obviously extraordinarily pleased that we have Sportsnet, TVA, and ESPN as our broadcast sponsors, and I think it says a lot about how they view this tournament and the potential it has. This is obviously going to be a best-on-best tournament with the best athletes in the world, and I think it will be the first step along a road to begin to tap what I think and the players think and the NHL thinks is a significant, enormous, untapped potential for hockey. This will be the first step in a series, and it will be on a global stage.
As further announcements roll out over time, I'm confident the excitement and anticipation will build and it will be well worth the wait.
GARY MEAGHER: And ESPN's John Skipper.
JOHN SKIPPER: Yes, thank you. We at ESPN are thrilled to have been awarded the 2016 rights to the World Cup of Hockey. I want to thank Gary and Don for having the faith in us to produce a world class event on the ESPN networks and properties for 2016. I will tell you, we're thrilled to be back with the NHL in the United States, thrilled to be bringing you the play of these 150 NHL players who will be in this tournament. So thank you, Don.
I tell you, the place is electric with excitement about getting back into hockey. We've got a lot of hockey fans here, and we're very excited and appreciate everything.
GARY MEAGHER: The president of Sportsnet and NHL Properties, Rogers, Scott Moore.
SCOTT MOORE: Thank you very much. We're incredibly excited that Rogers is fortunate to be a part of what surely will be the most exciting sporting event and biggest sporting event in Canada in 2016. Anybody of my age in Canada can remember watching the great hockey tournaments of 1972, 1987 with Gretzky and Lemieux. I was fortunate enough to produce the 1991 Canada Cup, and there is nothing quite like seeing the best players in the world playing for their countries in the best tournament.
We look forward to carrying the tournament, and producing it in a way that's never been seen before and look forward to working with the NHL and the NHLPA as our partners.
SERGE FORTIN: Gary, Don, on behalf of TVA Sports, want to say thank you. It's pride – like all these eight teams playing in September, they will all be playing for pride and so will we. It's going to be a great 2016 season starting in September, ending with the Stanley Cup in June. We're talking about ten months of great hockey and for TVA Sports it's an incredible day, a great moment, and we'll do a great job.
GARY MEAGHER: Thank you all. We're ready to take questions.
Q. Gary, obviously you guys have had a great partnership with NBC over the last few years. Were they involved with this negotiation and was there any concern with going with ESPN over them for an event like this?
COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: That's a great question and I'm glad you asked it. We have a terrific relationship with NBC Sports. We love the way they cover our game and the way they've treated us throughout our relationship. They were involved in the process, but it became clear in the course of the discussions that among other things, they had scheduling issues, and it made the most sense for us to be partnering in this regard with ESPN, and we couldn't be more delighted than to be having them involved.
If you look around the U.S. Major League sports broadcasting landscape, most of the other sports, the other three majors are on multiple platforms to begin with, and so nobody should find this as particularly revolutionary. Despite suggestions and rumors to the contrary, we have continued to maintain an excellent relationship with NBC. There were no points of friction or hard feelings.
As John Skipper said, this is going to be an opportunity to promote into our season on NBC, so we kind of view this as a positive all the way around for everybody.
JOHN SKIPPER: I would only confirm that. I've had a very gracious call with Mark Lazarus. Our intention here is to do a spectacular job of handing them over. A lot of interest in the start of the NHL season. We all get involved in these competitive bidding processes, and we all win some and lose some. In a very competitive process we were not awarded the rights to the regular season the Stanley Cup of NHL, which we think is a fabulous event. We think they do a great job at NBC, and we look forward to working with them on this.
Q. It's no secret that ESPN's coverage of the NHL changed after the rights went to the Comcast. Real estate on SportsCenter, for example, became a bit smaller. Were there any assurances from them as far as editorial approach that there be better placement of hockey on their news broadcast or have additional programming around the World Cup games like pre and postgame?
COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: We kind of view this as an opportunity to rekindle the SportsCenter interest. I'm not so sure with tongue in my cheek with the SportsCenter coverage when we were with them and after we went to NBC. But the final analysis, we've always had a good relationship with ESPN. I've always on a personal level had a good relationship with John Skipper, and before him George Bodenheimer.
So, I think it's a long life in a small world, and to the extent that the people at SportsCenter were more focused on hockey in September, maybe that will continue on throughout the regular season.
Q. Gary and John, maybe you can answer this. Is each rightsholder going to be able to produce their own telecast or will there be more of a world feed model? And if so, who will be in charge of producing that world feed?
JOHN SKIPPER: Gary can speak to the world feed because it is a world feed. But certainly we're going to have the opportunity to create our own coverage and our own sense of excitement and do studio shows across all platforms. It will be a world feed and world class production, but it's going to feel on our air like an ESPN presentation. Gary, is that fair?
COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: Yeah, I think that's fair, John. I think Rogers, since we're going to be based at the Air Canada Centre is going to be producing what, in effect, is a world feed, but everybody's going to be in position, particularly as it relates to our U.S. rightsholder, to tailor it and supplement it in whatever way they think is appropriate.
SCOTT MOORE: I would just say that we're pleased to be providing the world feed, and the personnel to be providing the world feed will be the same people that have done world feeds at the various Olympics for the last few years, and you can expect a world class feed with a lot of innovation for 2016.
Q. John, how aware are you of the grass roots growth into the more non-traditional hockey markets in the U.S. and how that might affect how ESPN approaches hockey as one of the big four sports in America from here on out?
JOHN SKIPPER: Well, as a North Carolina native who actually was in Raleigh for the Carolina Hurricanes appearance in the Stanley Cup Final, I'm pretty acutely aware of how Gary has smartly moved hockey into the other parts of the country. It remains a work in progress, but a work in progress with a lot of progress, and that's good for us. That matters to us because we hope to serve hockey fans in all states. The Panther fans in Florida, the Predator fans in Nashville. Pretty interesting story in the Times this week about Nashville hockey, so we think that's good for us.
DON FEHR: Given the footprint, obviously, that ESPN has, I think it goes without saying that this is a vote of confidence on their part that they're going to be able to do broadcasts which will be met with success throughout the country.
Q. Gary, based on the kind of the negotiations you had last year with Rogers and with Bell about the NHL, how did these negotiations compare and how competitive were they between those networks for the World Cup of Hockey?
COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: Both parties were interested. I would describe the negotiations as you did as competitive, but on balance, as we sorted it out we thought the right answer for us in Canada was to be with Rogers.
DON FEHR: From my stand point I was really gratified and pleased that we had the level of interest from both competitors that was there. But you can only have one.
Q. My question is for Mr. Fortin. What's it represent for young broadcasters like TVA sports to obtain the rights of a prestigious event like the World Cup?
SERGE FORTIN: But it's a great moment for TVA Sports. We've just started this 12-year agreement with the NHL and with our partner, Rogers. And hosting such a great international event in 2016 is a great moment. It will be a moment for us to showcase great production and bring all the emotion to our viewers in Quebec about the World Cup. So I think at this moment, TVA Sports in the news room and production meeting room is something to enjoy.
Q. In previous reporting in my own paper, a competitor of Sportsnet had suggested that they believed that Rogers as the national rightsholder of the NHL had something akin to a right to match other bids in this process. Is that accurate? Was there any such right?
COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: Nope. There was a process that was discussed in advance with both parties and everybody was very clear in advance as to what the rules of engagement were.
Q. Are you able to elaborate at all on what those rules were and what that process was?
COMMISSIONER BETTMAN: What the parties wanted was to each make a presentation, submit a bid and have us make a decision without going back to the parties again.
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