Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

[Nick Papagiorgio]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

....that's precisely what I do when I see a small time team on national TV. It's exactly what happened to Villanova in the 80s, granted that was bball and a title run but it's the same premise. People see a school they never heard of on national TV and get interested...especially fans of the sport.

So yes I am assuming people pull out their phones and google Merrimack, PC, or UML, I don't think it's that big of an assumption. Not like you have to walk down to your library and pull out an encyclopedia. You make it seem like it's a big chore to type a school's name into google. There was a recent study that over 50% of sports fans watch sports while surfing the web (to stay connected through twitter, live blogs, and forums) making it even that much easier to google..and that much more talked about in the twittersphere.

That could be up for debate. It's equally easy to pick up the remote and change the channel because Notre Dame is playing no one good.

Even if someone stuck around to watch and took out there phone to google Merrimack... OK... and then what happens? People put down their phone knowing Merrimack (who is probably losing by 4 goals by the time someone is bored enough to play on their phone) is in Andover, MA. And they're still irrelevant.

You're taking subsets of subsets several times over from a very small group of people as it is. Very few people are watching, fewer will leave it on, fewer people will google Merrimack, fewer people will ever care enough to go "I'm sending an application to Merrimack because I saw them get their heads pounded in by the ND hockey team once!"

It's not going to help Merrimack hockey or the school from an academic standpoint but if you think it might, I don't see reason to burst the bubble any more than it already is.

 

[jcarter7669]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

....that's precisely what I do ....
So yes I am assuming people pull out their phones and google Merrimack, PC, or UML, I don't think it's that big of an assumption.

So do you also most people live in their parents basement and play D&D all night?

 

[Yuppie Scum]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

What demands do you think they had for Hockey East?

They have to stock the soda machine at the Lawler for three years.

 

[Salvo1017]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

regardless, national TV time where there would be none otherwise is nothing but a good thing.

 

[J.D.]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

They have to stock the soda machine at the Lawler for three years.

OK come on, you stole that from moneyball

 

[Wholin1]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

It seems pretty obvious that ND based on its athletics history is not going to be motivated by what is good for ND, but what is good for HE.

 

[slurpees]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

regardless, national TV time where there would be none otherwise is nothing but a good thing.

For a small time program like Merrimack, sure. You're not actively competing and recruiting against programs like ND, yet. For the big Hockey East programs, they are, and an exclusive national TV deal for ND would be a huge leg up for ND in terms of recruiting, revenue to fund more full scholarships - another recruiting advantage, among other positives. When I say exclusive national TV deal, I don't mean some home games shown on Fox Sports Chicago, or Versus saying sure, we'll sign on to a more lucrative TV package and televise more HE conference games with ND included, I'm saying Versus signs a deal with ND, to show their games only, with the revenue going to them, the tagline being something to the effect of "Notre Dame Hockey on Versus", etc. That would be a bad situation for Hockey East to put themselves in, it would adversely affect the big programs that recruit against ND when the ND coaches can say, come here and everyone gets a full scholarship guaranteed and you'll be on national TV all the time, whereas at BU or BC you'll get a half scholarship and be on NESN. If you can't see how that negatively impacts recruiting, I can't explain it any better.

 

[Savage]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

I don't disagree about the advantage in terms of exposure, but I'm not sure the money for the scholarship matters, in this case. ND already gives out the maximum the NCAA allows, and between football money and athletics endowments they have made the commitment to fully fund all of their sports' scholarship limits in perpetuity.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

no, that's what he's saying you do. continue with the same kind of set up Maine and UVM have where teams come up and play two, but extend it to ND, and RPI for those teams that are too far for a home and home. For RPI, that's probably only UNH and Maine, as all other schools are about a 3 hour or so trip. Travel wise, it's not that hard to do.

If you were to have four teams on that arrangement, it would work out neatly and allow every team to maintain a home-away balance in their schedule—I'd been thinking of just giving one more of them the ND arrangement, but this would work even better. Pair off the distant teams, and have them play one-offs at each other's place. You could even rotate the pairings if you wanted to do so.

 

[mookie1995]

...more full scholarships --- ND coaches can say, come here and everyone gets a full scholarship guaranteed .... I can't explain it any better.

I think you know this, but teams are limited to 18 full scholarships by the NCAA. You can't, no matter how much $$, offer full rides to your entire roster... BU and BC give halfies at times because you dress 20-21 every night and have depth. And you can divide 24 into 18 and get more than a fraction.

 

[slurpees]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

I know there's a limit to the number of scholarships - didn't know some teams stretch them out using the halvsies. Makes sense now that I think about it, don't know how I didn't put two and two together there. However, the TV revenue still plays a role here, not directly on recruiting, in that it does provide another source of revenue, albeit not tremendous, for the department to use on things such as facilities, weight rooms, etc. which can also impact recruiting. But if that's ND splitting the money with ND, and not splitting the money with the conference, it's an advantage.

 

[J.D.]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

And again, I really only brought this up because I still haven't heard a valid reason as to why the NCHC and ND couldn't agree. The example I used was the opposition of the Longhorn Network by pretty much everyone in the Big XII.

 

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

And again, I really only brought this up because I still haven't heard a valid reason as to why the NCHC and ND couldn't agree. The example I used was the opposition of the Longhorn Network by pretty much everyone in the Big XII.

Part of the problem the Big XII has with the Longhorn Network is the depth of its reach. It's feared it will show high school games of recruits who Texas targets. Advantage, Texas. The $$$ generated is going straight to Texas. Again, advantage, Texas. It will imprint the Texas brand in the minds of Texans to a further extent than already exists now. In short it will do many things that some (still rumored and fictional) Notre Dame hockey network could never hope to do. There wouldn't be a financial windfall. Although we can manage to keep separating NBC from a ton of their money for a mediocre football team, even a championship caliber Notre Dame hockey team wouldn't command a king's ransom for a TV deal. Showing high-school and junior hockey games of recruits ND targets? TV ratings death. Never going to happen. Using valuable TV bandwidth to nationally televise every Notre Dame home game? Same thing as far as ratings death, who would do it?

I can see no valid reason for the NCHC to oppose some deal Notre Dame may have to televise games. It has happened for years anyway in the other leagues. North Dakota shows home games throughout the state on the FSSN, Minnesota shows all their games on FOX Sports North. Michigan and Michigan State have for years "owned" what passes as the CCHA package on FOX Detroit. BC and BU receive more games on NESN than the other 8 schools combined. And whatever games CBS College and ESPN U show are heavily weighted towards the handful of "name brand" schools that play college hockey.

Adam Wodon first reported a deal for Notre Dame to show games on a "regional sports network." After I questioned him on the accuracy of that in his piece last week, he amended it to simply a "local" network. My guess is someone wants something to fill up some programming slots on one of their additional digital tier channels, and isn't paying Notre Dame a dime for it. And additionally, we're speculating about what may happen NOW. None of the conference shuffling takes place until 2013. Other than the Olympics, TV networks don't usually make certain plans for events not slated to happen for 2 years or more. My guess is there is at least a 50/50 chance that even when Notre Dame finally gets off the pot and craps out an announcement, it won't be the last major change. All of this happened so quickly, its hard for me to believe that everyone is going to be happy with the eventual outcome.

 

[Craig P.]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

And again, I really only brought this up because I still haven't heard a valid reason as to why the NCHC and ND couldn't agree. The example I used was the opposition of the Longhorn Network by pretty much everyone in the Big XII.

There's been some noise about "exposure" being more at issue than money. The best way I can take that is (assuming there actually were intractable differences over TV), the NCHC wanted to draw some kind of hard line on how many times ND would appear on TV vs. other teams in the conference, probably taking umbrage at the Irish, as a bit of a latecomer, getting some sort of favored position in a "national" TV contract.

I can conceive of other differences. Maybe ND had some firm demands on scheduling, e.g. fewer conference games total or more games vs. Miami or WMU (I'd sooner think the former than the latter) than everyone else wanted. There's some quotes out there to suggest that the NCHC plans to play 28 conference games. Without either Alaska involved, that leaves six non-conference games. I could easily see ND wanting more than that in order to be able to play series with Integer teams (e.g. Michigan and MSU) as well as BC and one or two other eastern teams and a holiday tournament.

 

[Tater]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

BU has had their own television contracts back with channel 68, the old Fox Sports New England, and more recently with NESN. I don't recall it ever being an issue in the past.

 

[snwbrdr]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

That is not much of a write-up for the HE. how about a bit more depth on the pros and cons for each team?

 

[HockeyMan2000]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

That is not much of a write-up for the HE. how about a bit more depth on the pros and cons for each team?

Agreed. The writing on this site seems to be in a state of steady decline...most of the time I just come right to the boards and forget the front page altogether. Sure isn't what it once was.

 

[slurpees]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

BU has had their own television contracts back with channel 68, the old Fox Sports New England, and more recently with NESN. I don't recall it ever being an issue in the past.

Keyword is national. I don't care if ND wants to broadcast a few games on Fox Sports Chicago or some Indiana regional sports station. I care if they want to have a contract with Versus that only they benefit from.

 

[Tater]

Re: Hockey East 2011 - 2012 :

That is not much of a write-up for the HE. how about a bit more depth on the pros and cons for each team?

Click on the team name in the article and there is a write-up on each team.

 

[mookie1995]

Keyword is national. I don't care if ND wants to broadcast a few games on Fox Sports Chicago or some Indiana regional sports station. I care if they want to have a contract with Versus that only they benefit from.

if versus wants to show ND games and signs a deal with them, that is their business. if versus wants to show HEA games and signs a deal with joe bag and ND takes 50% of the money, that is our business.

--of course, as i've said before... there is close to NO money for these broadcasts. the ratings are crap. you watch the BU package games? guess how much money BU nets from that? before you guess, put a "-" in front of your numbers. you notice nearly all the ads are for agganis arena, right? then a couple for the school with those kids heads spinning around. FOH have underwritten those broadcasts in the past.

rights come from selling commercial time. who pays for commercials for games that pull a rating that rivals 0.0?

how come i go read about the deals for hea tv and don't see a $ anywhere? but i can go google "ACC tv contract" and see $1.86B over 12 years.