NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman Excited For Growth Potential With Two National Rightsholders Bettman also addressed opportunities in sports betting and social media By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Thursday, October 21, 2021 - 2:16 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
With an expansion franchise, two new arenas, and two new national broadcast rightsholders in the United States, this may be the wildest National Hockey League season in recent memory. For NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, this isn't stressful; its exciting.
At SportsBusiness Journal's World Congress of Sports, Bettman addressed the return of ESPN, the addition of Turner, and the latest in growing the game through sponsorships and sports betting.
On the return of ESPN as a national rightsholder:
The song is back. The level of promotion that led up to the game was phenomenal. The investment that they made in production and talent and cameras and all of the ways that they are covering the game was great. They are putting a tremendous amount of production capability behind us. I was at the game [on Opening Night] so I couldn't hear what most of the commentary was but [lead play-by-play announcer] Sean McDonough was a pro. As much as I could tell, the studio setup was great.
They treated this like a big event which makes us feel good about our game because we think our games are a big event. We feel there's a real genuine excitement. We have camera operators on the ice during TV timeouts; we had to work on that together. I guess the best thing I can say about it is its clear to us that there's an energy and excitement on behalf of ESPN and The Walt Disney Company to have us. We're thrilled to be with them. It's palpable.
The way that we structured this deal is really an attempt by both of us to be forward looking with a key element in ESPN+ being our direct-to-consumer [play]. So we have traditional linear and we have the digital platforms while I think is going to put us both in good stead as the broadcast industry continues to evolve.
I think in terms of promotion and platform, being back on ESPN brings us back to a more traditional sports fan. Hockey fans got separated from ESPN because there wasn't as much coverage. With my tongue in my cheek, if ESPN is half as good at promoting us as they were at freezing us out when they didn't have our rights, this is going to be great.
On the addition of Turner Sports:
I have known Jeff Zucker for years and we're excited about being with WarnerMedia.
Turner, I think tends to skew a little younger; digital facing with Bleacher Report. So I think for us, having been in one place when the other three majors were on multiple platforms being promoted, I felt it was important that we be in both places. I have great confidence in both the ESPN and the TNT relationships. They are used to being in the sandbox together because they both have NBA rights. So I think this is going to be a wonderful collaboration for all of us. We're something new for both of them and they are excited about that and this is an opportunity for us to reach more fans and even bring in more casual fans.
On the changing generational demographics:
There are a couple of aspects to that. One is we need to continue to use technology to help our fans connect with games in ways that they want to. So, yes it's about linear and digital but we are going to be more data driven. We have tech partnerships with AWS, SAP, Apple, Sportradar, Verizon. We are creating more data. Our game is played faster than any other game with more non-stop action so to give fans an opportunity to follow that we are using puck and player tracking. In terms of 5G, while we think our in-arena experience has always been great, this is a chance to enhance that and make sure that fans want to be at the games. All of this is to give fans a context and an ability to connect with the game on their terms and we haven't even touched sports betting yet.
The other, which has been a priority of mine, is we as a league need to be more diverse and inclusive. We are spending more money and more resources to not only make sure that our game is more welcoming at the NHL level for people who are players, fans, or on the business side, but we also want to make sure at the youth level that there are programs and that the culture is one that is welcoming and accepting of everyone no matter who they are or what their background is. We've probably been the most diverse league in terms of the nationality of our players as more than 20 different countries are represented but we need to do a better job in embracing the changing demographics in North America.
On sports betting and other new sponsorship opportunities:
DraftKings is our tenth and newest daily fantasy/sports betting partner. We're trying to do this in a responsible way where people can be comfortable betting on our game if they want to. If you want to just do fantasy, you can do that. To the extent that more and more jurisdictions are added, this is another way to grow the game. Not unlike, during the pandemic when we allowed some branding on helmets and, beginning next season, very modest but appropriate branding on sweaters. Again, it's a way to continue to grow and maybe make up a little bit for the mess of the past 18 months.
We're in the infancy of sports betting. What it looks like today, and its exploding, it will continue to evolve in terms of where people and how people will be betting on sports and connecting with sports.
Most recent headlines
23/12/2025
Taking the Stage at Carnegie Hall-On a Global Scale Boston Conservatory Orchestra students reflect on their epic concert marking the 80th session of the UN Gene...
22/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Neerav Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
22/12/2025
Hitting the bullseye: Sky Sports readies itself for the biggest PDC World Darts ...
22/12/2025
Unique skillset: Bringing new directors to the world of darts at The Worlds with...
22/12/2025
Gravity Media prepares for a flight of fancy with the PDC World Darts Championsh...
22/12/2025
One hundred and eighty: Gravity Media on hitting the production bullseye at the ...
22/12/2025
The Famous Group's Jon Slusser on Fascinating Fans Through Immersive Content...
22/12/2025
ESPN's Meg Aronowitz on Continuing High-Quality Broadcasts of Collegiate Spo...
22/12/2025
ESPN Takes Data-Driven Storytelling to New Heights with MNF Playbook with Next ...
22/12/2025
For a decade, popular German podcast Fest & Flauschig has hosted an annual Chris...
22/12/2025
Paramount Scores Largest Share Increase Among Distributors as Paramount and CBS...
22/12/2025
New multi-year deal integrates Roku's data to fuel Nielsen's measurement suite
Roku gains access to Nielsen's streaming ratings, showing The Roku C...
22/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
22/12/2025
Berklee Wrapped 2025: Our Top News and Stories A look back at a year highlighted by faculty milestones, major film and television projects, Bob Dylan's ho...
22/12/2025
The works of Plato state that when humans have an experience, some level of change occurs in their brain, which is powered by memory - specifically long-term me...
22/12/2025
Partnership integrates complementary satellite data and AI analytics to enhance security, infrastructure, and environmental monitoring solutions for global cust...
22/12/2025
Workflows allow you to create a sequence of planned events which may be added to your template(s) or inserted directly into your sequential or background playli...
22/12/2025
Monday 22 December 2025
Sky extends PGA TOUR partnership until 2029, as Sky Spo...
22/12/2025
Back to All News
Global Anime Hits and New Releases Take Center Stage at Jump Festa 2026
Entertainment
22 December 2025
GlobalJapan
Link copied to clipboar...
22/12/2025
Siobh n McSweeney, Rory McIlroy, Elon Musk, Catherine Connolly, Jim Gavin, Ivan Yates and Traitor Paudie Moloney lead new characters for Callan Kicks the Year 2...
22/12/2025
Winner announced in the picturesque surroundings of Wicklow's Avondale Tower and Treetop Walk
Andrew Trimble wins the show in his first series as coach
Th...
22/12/2025
The 2025 winners have been announced today, Sunday 21 December, for Ireland's largest choral competition Choirs for Christmas hosted by RT lyric fm.
Ove...
21/12/2025
Back to All News
Legoshi and Haru's Story Reaches Its Finale: BEASTARS Fin...
21/12/2025
John Shortt named Young Sportsperson of the Year Kerry are the Team of the Year
...
20/12/2025
Atomos announced the immediate availability of a new firmware update for its Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX monitor-recorders, unlocking ProRes RAW recording from the...
20/12/2025
CJP Broadcast has completed the digitisation of the European Gymnastics tape archive, converting 328 tapes containing more than forty years of recorded material...
20/12/2025
Bitmovin, the leading provider of video streaming solutions, today announced the launch of the Stream Lab MCP Server, to give AI agents and large language model...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
20/12/2025
Barack Obama Includes Laufey on His 2025 Favorite Music List The former presidents roundup of books, music, and movies includes a song from the Berklee alums ...
20/12/2025
Study reveals a key hormonal circuit in the kidneys Scripps Research scientists identify the protein that helps kidney cells regulate renin, providing foundatio...
19/12/2025
With Playout Release 2025.4, ToolsOnAir continues to push professional playout w...
19/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Diversified's Jared Timmins on AI for Broadcast Sports and Cre...
19/12/2025
2025 SVG Summit Audio Recap: Say What?The Audio Production and Distribution Workshop at the SVG Summit 20 took on issues including speech intelligibility, Next-...
19/12/2025
Gamified fun: Channel 5 on its NFL Big Game Night ambitions with Hungry Bear Med...
19/12/2025
College Football Playoff Preview: For ESPN, Round 1 is a Fantastic Yet Familia...
19/12/2025
AWS's Jason Dvorkin on Developing Partnerships With the NBA and PGA Tour, Em...
19/12/2025
Netflix Kicks Off Packed Sports Week with Paul-Joshua Fight Before Shifting to N...
19/12/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Presidio's Nareev Shah on the Role of Its Captiva...
19/12/2025
Mounted to the pylon of an AH-1Z Viper helicopter, a Red Wolf vehicle successful...
19/12/2025
L3Harris technology for the SDA Tranche 3 Tracking Layer program will provide in...
19/12/2025
Partnership brings Nielsen ONE measurement activation directly into XR's adv...
19/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
19/12/2025
Share Share by:
Copy link
Facebook
X
Whatsapp
Pinterest
Flipboard...
19/12/2025
Berklee Announces Spring 2026 Signature Series This season's highlights include the Gospel Extravaganza, the 40th International Folk Festival, special gue...
NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman Excited For Growth Potential With Two National Rightsholders Bettman also addressed opportunities in sports betting and social media By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
