Re: NBC/Versus deal with College Hockey
I don't believe ESPN is allowed to do that. The reason they show these 'other' championships is because they were included in the contract for Basketball and Football. Things ESPN wants to keep.
ESPN actually added 7 NCAA championships including women's gymnastics, women's lax, fencing, indoor/outdoor track and women's bowling. This deal, which includes men's hockey, goes through 2023-24. Which is a shame as I'd rather see it on NBCSN to be perfectly honest, though ESPN can show more of the regional games because they have more channels.
http://www.ncaa.org/wps/wcm/connect...+NCAA+extend+rights+agreement+through+2023-24 ESPN does not have the women's hockey rights and to be honest, I don't know who does although that might be CBS. If that were available, even as a cheap sublicense, it could be a good fit for NBCSN especially as a home for Olympic women's hockey and with Universal Sports showing the Women's World Championships in recent years.
It's NBCSN..ratings aren't their primary focus. They are an advertising arm of NBC Sports. They are trying to build a brand to compete with ESPN (eventually). The cool thing is college hockey is in on the ground floor of a new sports network. However, lawn mower racing, World's Strongest Man and Australian Rules Football were staples on ESPN in the early days...
Should point out that while not doing spectacular, college hockey has not been doing bad for NBCSN. With the NHL missing, NBCSN's 4th highest rated program in the month, excluding the syndicated fishing shows left over from the Outdoor Life Network, was Michigan State -Notre Dame drawing 98k viewers - the highest rated college hockey game on the network in history. (Detroit-St. Louis on Versus last December drew 259k so not terrible - relatively speaking.) Vermont-Dartmouth drew 45k, around the eyeballs for Big 5 college basketball ('Nova at Penn).
From a brief google on Steve Lepore's Puck the Media site, it appears the top 4 college hockey games were*:
1. Michigan State - Notre Dame, 98k Fri., Dec. 7, 2012 (7pm)
2. Denver - North Dakota, 86k Fri., Feb. 24, 2012 (10pm) - note: this game was shockingly above its lead in (in terms of growth, not that it was shocking that it did better, in case that's not clear), a BU-Vermont hockey game that drew only 38k
3. Yale - Harvard, 82k Fri., Jan. 27, 2012 (7pm) - note: grew from a lead in of 18k! (CNBC's Sports Biz)
4. Michigan - Notre Dame, 74k Fri., Jan. 20, 2012 (7pm I think)
*around the same time, Puck the Media moved from Wordpress to SB Nation so some games might have been lost in the transition. Somewhat surprised that the Hockey East tournament is missing.
http://puckthemedia.wordpress.com/?s=college+hockey and
http://www.sbnation.com/2012/12/14/3765064/so-whats-up-with-nbc-sports-network-these-days
Would love to see a way NBCSN could tie-in college hockey with its other programming more. I know I've seen it with the Ivy League since they own the Ivy's football/basketball/lacrosse rights - I saw them plugging Harvard-Cornell hockey during some Ivy football game (Harvard-Penn?) and then obviously plugging Harvard-Yale football during Harvard-Cornell. (The ads were done really well btw). Would love to see them do a Notre Dame football game on NBC in the afternoon and then a Notre Dame hockey game on NBCSN immediately after, for example. And as angry as I am at the NHL, some sort of doubleheader with the pros would be gravy, like a Sunday afternoon NBCSN game after the national NHL broadcast. This would be especially true of the "big" NHL days like the Black Friday games (plenty of college teams to choose from usually playing that night, though the Cornell MSG "home" game might be the best fit) or if there was a college game at the Winter Classic site on New Year's Eve.
That said, I love NBCSN's strategy. Many of the sports properties have a synergy to them at the moment. NCAA hockey to NHL (to World Championships) to Winter Olympics. MLS to EPL to Summer Olympics for soccer. College Rugby 7s, preparing for the eventuality of Olympic Rugby 7s. NCAA Football and the NFL. The only thing they are really missing is some form of NBA coverage since they mostly have mid-major (or lower) college basketball and then the (usually a blowout) Olympic stuff. (And yes, baseball, but they have no baseball coverage of any kind.) I know people worry about competition on the network but I think adding properties only helps college hockey here as more people find the network. Seems like their strategy means they'll stay committed to it.
Was at TGI Friday's, no sound because of the muzak (I believe they get money for that), but got it up on one of the screens.