NEW YORK – NBC executives are hoping that the National Hockey League and its players union reach a new labor agreement and avoid a lockout that could leave the network scrambling to find a replacement for one of its sports programming mainstays. Hockey is a linchpin of NBC Sports programming - the network signed a new $2 billion, 10-year contract with the league last year. A strike or delay in the upcoming NHL season would throw cold water on the momentum it built up from the London Olympics, which nightly averaged 31.3 million viewers for the network. Labor talks between the NHL and the union representing its players broke down last week over economic issues such as revenue sharing. The league's owners have said they would lock out players if a deal is not reached by a Sept. 15 deadline. As of Wednesday afternoon, talks between the two sides had not yet resumed. The worst case scenario for Comcast-owned NBC, which holds the exclusive national broadcast rights to NHL games, is for the entire upcoming season to be canceled. That's not without precedent. The NHL and its players union scrapped the entire 2004-05 season after failing to achieve a labor deal. A better, but not ideal, scenario for NBC would be a delay to the NHL season, similar to what happened to the National Basketball Association last year. The first regular season NHL game is scheduled for Oct. 11, but exhibition games start about two weeks earlier. The timing could not be worse for Comcast, which is relying on hockey to build up the NBC Sports Network, its fledgling cable sports channel. A lockout would leave the network, previously known as Versus and the Outdoor Life Network, with major holes to fill in its prime-time lineup. “The NBC Sports Network got some great lift and visibility and awareness with the Olympics and they'd like to keep that momentum by having the NHL," said Jason Maltby, director of national broadcast TV at media buying firm MindShare. Comcast's plan was to couple the momentum generated by the London Olympics with hockey, whose television ratings have increased in recent years, as a way to brand the NBC Sports Network as a rival destination to Disney's ESPN and the regional sports networks operated by News Corp's Fox unit. — Reuters
