NHL’s national television schedule reveals troubling dependence on familiar teams

NHL keeps selling yesterday

Television networks chase ratings. Nobody should expect ESPN or TNT to surrender viewers simply to provide every franchise with equal exposure. Sports broadcasting is a business, not a participation trophy ceremony.

Still, national coverage helps create the popularity networks later use to justify these decisions.

Repeatedly placing the Rangers, Bruins, Penguins and Blackhawks in premium windows keeps those franchises visible. Younger teams and emerging contenders then get dismissed as weaker television draws because the league has done far less to introduce them to casual viewers. It is a tidy little circle, and the same organizations keep benefiting from it.

Even the featured holiday games lean heavily on established attractions. The Thanksgiving doubleheader begins with the Rangers visiting Chicago, followed by Pittsburgh facing Buffalo. The Martin Luther King Jr. Day slate includes Boston and Pittsburgh. ABC Hockey Saturday launches with another Rangers and Bruins game.

There are only so many ways to reheat the same leftovers.

National television schedule needs greater ambition

The NHL has young talent scattered throughout the league. It has recent expansion franchises establishing new audiences, improving clubs trying to escape years of irrelevance and contenders that deserve more than occasional streaming assignments.

Those teams cannot become national attractions while remaining mostly invisible outside their local markets.

The NHL does not need to abandon its biggest brands. Crosby remains worth showcasing, and Original Six games will always attract interest. The league simply needs to stop treating recognizable logos as its only dependable product.

A national television schedule should reflect where the NHL is going, not merely remind everyone where it has already been.