The NHL’s return to “best on best” Olympic competition was close to a best-case scenario for the league, but commissioner Gary Bettman still sees room for improvement.
Appearing at the Sports Business Journal National Sports Forum Tuesday, Bettman reportedly advocated for a later start time for the next Olympic men’s hockey final, which takes place from Nice, France, in four years — the same time zone as Milan, Italy, where this year’s Olympic competition took place.
Last Sunday’s United States-Canada men’s hockey gold medal game began at 8 AM ET — 2 PM local time — the earliest for the Olympic men’s hockey final since a 6:30 AM ET start from Sochi in 2014. The start time was much earlier than the last time the U.S. and Canada met in the gold medal game 16 years go in Vancouver, a North American Olympics that allowed for a mid-afternoon start.
While the game still attracted an outsized audience of 18.6 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, that was well short of the nearly 28 million who watched in 2010 (which would surely have been well north of 30 million, perhaps even approaching 40, under current methodology). Bettman said this year’s numbers were “terrific,” but added that he has been told “by reliable sources” that the audience “could’ve been twice as high.”
Plenty of this year’s Olympic events, including hockey games, took place in the midday hours. But with the men’s hockey game the final event of the Games, it had to take place early enough to allow players to attend the Closing Ceremony.
“There are things we can do based on this experience and our relationship with the IIHF and the IOC that can make it an even more impactful event for hockey,” Bettman said, as recounted by Alex Silverman of Sports Business Journal. He also addressed the NHL’s lack of highlight rights during the Games, saying that “it isn’t good if the NHL disappears for two and a half weeks.”
The NHL returned to Olympic competition this year after holding its players out of the 2018 and 2022 Games. The United States won the competition for the first time since 1980.
