Up Close With PSR
Neal Pilson

Neal Pilson spent 19 years with CBS Sports, including two terms as president, and now runs Pilson Communications, Inc., a television consulting firm. You can hardly read a media report dealing with sports television today without seeing a quote from Pilson, also a lifelong hockey fan.

Pilson shared his thoughts about hockey and television, quite different from mainstream beliefs these days, with PSR senior writer Bob Grove.

PSR: The NHL is beat up for its national television ratings. Is that unfair?

Neal Pilson: It is. The NHL has a successful TV presentation and, in fact, over-performs. They compete very effectively on sports television: Demographics are more important to TV sponsors than household ratings, and the demographics for hockey are very positive.

PSR:Some say hockey isn't a sport that translates well to TV.

NP: The problem isn't TV. Hockey faces an issue that other major sports don't, a smaller percentage of the viewing audience has actually played hockey. Just about every American has hit a baseball, thrown a football, shot a basketball, and appreciates the degree of difficulty involved. That makes watching on TV a lot easier. Hockey, because of its unique nature, isn't fully appreciated by the viewing audience because a large percentage never played the game. This impacts their ability to watch: Hockey has to reach out to casual fans, and that's a challenge. But hockey has an incredibly dedicated cadre of fans who are as loyal to hockey as NASCAR fans are to their sport. It just doesn't have the great numbers that other sports have.

PSR: Fox tried to reach casual fans with the glowing puck, and they were largely criticized for it.

NP: Somewhat unfairly. They made a legitimate effort to get people involved. The complaint was that people couldn't follow the puck. Fox addressed this with the glowing puck, which was misguided because that's not how you watch hockey. But Fox helped improve the demographics of hockey.

PSR: The ABC-ESPN contract expires after this season. What will happen with the next contract?

NP: I think it's most likely they will continue with ESPN and ABC because I think that combination offers the best exposure for the league on a national basis. ESPN is very happy with its NHL relationship and is making an effort to renew the deal. It makes sense for the NHL to be on ESPN.

PSR: With ESPN landing NBA games and reducing NHL games, some hockey fans feel ESPN is dumping them.

NP: I disagree. The NHL gets good exposure on ESPN, better than they could on any other national channel. The NHL benefits from the new NBA viewers, because that helps promote ESPN's NHL coverage to them: ESPN represents the best opportunity available.

PSR: How will the impending labor strife impact talks for a new TV deal?

NP: Obviously, both the TV executives and the NHL are aware of the uncertainty created by the lack of a CBA. The decision is probably whether or not the league wants to conclude a new deal before the negotiations are finished. ESPN is probably prepared to make a deal in advance of knowing whether the league is going to settle the deal would go into effect whenever the NHL is playing.

PSR: Isn't the relatively boring nature of its game these days hurting the NHL?

NP: I watched the Rangers and Islanders recently and it wasn't boring. One problem hockey is trying to address is that by expanding the number of teams, they diluted regional matchups and traditional rivalries somewhat, although they're trying to get back to that with an unbalanced schedule: I think the regular season in the NHL is a mix of games, some highly entertaining and some not. But the Stanley Cup playoffs are the best, most competitive and most entertaining post-season playoff of any TV sport.

PSR: So the NHL has something special once springtime comes?

NP: Stanley Cup hockey is terrific. I'm not sure that over an 82-game schedule you can match that. A typical NFL game has a 12 rating. In the playoffs, that doubles. In baseball, the ratings double or triple for the post-season. Hockey doesn't have that supply of casual viewers who come to the game during the playoffs. It's a different fan base than other sports, but I would say hockey viewers are more repetitive and watch more hockey than a typical baseball fan watches baseball.