Posted by chicagomedia.org on May 06, 2009 at 07:12:17:
One goal for Hawks fans: Find the game on TV
Phil Rosenthal | Tribune Media
May 6, 2009
It's just like old times. The Chicago Blackhawks are back in the Stanley Cup playoffs, back on Chicagoans' radar and -- thanks to a National Hockey League television deal -- back in the TV equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle.
The Hawks are playing some of their biggest games in years and reluctantly playing hard-to-get with viewers. Game 1 of their second-round series with Vancouver last week was on Versus. Game 4 on Thursday will be on Versus too.
Versus.
Yes, it's a cable channel.
"A lot of people don't even realize that Versus exists," Hawks' owner Rocky Wirtz said Tuesday before Game 3 at the United Center. "You just have to grin and bear it. It's a league-mandated decision."
Versus said about 85 percent of the households that have cable or satellite in the Chicago market now get it, which translates to about 75 percent of the total Chicago TV market.
But it has been hard enough for the Blackhawks to win back fans and get them used to the idea that home and away games are on TV, a reversal of long-standing policy. In addition to cable's Comcast SportsNet Chicago, the team cut a deal this season with WGN-Ch. 9 to broadcast games in hopes of building and sustaining interest in the team and young stars such as Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. (Chicago Tribune parent Tribune Co. owns WGN and has a share in Comcast SportsNet.)
A strong franchise in the nation's No. 3 market only helps the league.
"Hopefully the league will realize that access can only help the game instead of trying to funnel it through a very small eye of the needle," Wirtz said. "We didn't make a lot of money on our WGN deal, but the idea was that eventually we would."
Admittedly, Thursday's Game 1 exclusively on Versus had the misfortune of beginning while the Bulls and Boston Celtics were battling into triple overtime and while the Cubs were playing. It was a late start and the Hawks didn't help by spotting the Canucks a 3-0 lead en route to a 5-3 loss.
But the Versus telecast drew only a 2.37 household rating here, which translates to less than 83,000 Chicago TV households. That's only a little better than half of the 4.52 household rating Comcast SportsNet averaged for telecasts of the Hawks' first-round triumph over Calgary.
"And that's probably the highest [Versus has] ever been in Chicago," Wirtz said.
If the Hawks advance to a third-round matchup, Versus gets all those games. Reach the Stanley Cup finals, and Games 3 and 4 are only on Versus while the remainder of the best-of-seven series is on NBC.
Versus.com has a place for unhappy hockey fans to enter their ZIP codes and find out where their games are hiding. Wirtz said the Blackhawks, too, offer similar help online.
If it drives people to drink, that's OK. "If nothing else, watch it with a group in neighborhood bars that have Versus," said Wirtz, whose primary business is as a liquor distributor.
Versus was known as Outdoor Life Network when it snagged a deal with the NHL in 2005, bidding up the price on ESPN. OLN owner Comcast not only was willing to pay up to $72.5 million per year for a three-year deal after the league's 2004-05 labor lockout, it was willing to put the league's NHL Network on subscribers' digital tier.
OLN, meanwhile, thought it could use pro hockey as a stepping stone to land rights to pro baseball and football. That didn't happen. The NHL is part of a schedule that includes cycling, bull-riding, Indy car racing, college football and World Extreme Cagefighting.
But the league renewed its Versus deal going into this season. It's only that the Hawks are making their first post-season appearance in seven years that anyone here has noticed or cared about the channel's exclusivity.
"Hopefully, the league will look at this," Wirtz said. "What we're competing with is everybody's free time. There are a thousand things they could be doing besides watching the Hawks."
Trying to find the channel they're on shouldn't be one of them.