Shrinking the Game: Hockey has a TV coverage problem, from local to international level, as the New Jersey Devils are blacked out at MSG by Optimum and Altice

It's not even a full week into the new year, but Devils fans and hockey fans have already had their fair share of frustration, starting with Optimum's decision to shut down sports broadcasts in the New York Metropolitan Area. Meanwhile, the NHL and IIHF continue to fall flat on their faces every time they get a chance to market the game. Let's dive in.

The MSG optimal dispute

Just days after the founder of Cablevision and HBO, Charles Dolan, died at age 98Optimum followed the legacy of its former parent company by entering into a dispute with MSG Networks, which led to the canals going dark at midnight on New Year's Day. Like the disputes Cablevision had with MSG Networks in the 1980s, this one would presumably center on whether MSG should be a basic cable or a premium subscription option, by definition. The desk.

Altice, Optimum's parent company, wants MSG to become a premium service, just as Charles Dolan and Cablevision wanted (and got) in the 1980s. Dolan did not reacquire MSG until 1997, and his desires for sports broadcasting as a premium service led George Steinbrenner and YankeesNets to form YES Network in 2002, after Dolan attempted to exert his power. tried to buy the New York Yankees but was turned down. Steinbrenner had his counter-move in YES in his sights for years and eventually won.

The current situation is a little different. Altice, which wants MSG to return to its former status as a premium subscription service, is particularly at odds with James Dolan, who took control of MSG in 1999. His father, Charles, sold Cablevision to Altice for $17.7 billion in 2015. Altice now uses similar monopolization tactics to those used by the Dolans in the 1990s, acquiring more and more networks so they can raise prices for consumers and withholding broadcasts to corner customers.

But the reality is: Optimum already has regional and local monopolized territories across the Northeast, as many cable companies do in the areas in which they operate. If you can't watch the Devils on Optimum and you call or message to complain, you may have turned to vouchers for Fubo. Well, if Optimum is already charging $160 a month for a full cable package (before the internet costs, since Optimum will likely be the only internet source in its service areas), who in the world would want to pay Fubo $80 a month? month to fill their coverage gaps?

Fubo also dropped SNY, so you can't even get the full sports package there in the New York area. It seems like DirectTV is now the only place where you can get all YES, SNY and MSG. I certainly wouldn't have previously identified DirectTV as the best place to subscribe, as I haven't been in a house there in about 10 years. But yes, DirectTV makes these channels available at the Choice tier, for $89.99 above their base entertainment package of $74.99, but well below the Ultimate and Premier tiers of $119.99 and $164.99 respectively. But $160 a month isn't enough for Optimum to offer MSG.

Optimum's lowest internet price is $89.99 per month. If you now have optimal internet and cable, and you want to watch the Devils, Rangers, Knicksor islanders and you want to do it without using illegal streaming sites, then you have to pay $330 per month. But of course there is more. There are ESPN+ exclusive games: Those cost another $11.99 per month unless you get one of Disney's more expensive package deals.

Consider the position that Altice and Optimum also take. They argue that MSG, which is offering a lower cost in 2025 than what Altice paid in 2024, is asking too much, and that they should become a premium subscription channel. such as HBO or Showtime. Customers already pay a lot for cable and TV in areas with optimal service (and their package deals are not available to all customers due to their disinterest in expanding fiber coverage), and adding dollars and cents to the monthly bill could result in some people stop watching sports altogether. (Now no one gets anyone's money.)

But I don't expect Josh Harris and David Blitzer to pull a Steinbrenner here. The situation has changed and the Dolan family is no longer the entity to defeat. Bally/FanDuel Sports has the Guardians. NBC Sports has the 76ers. The NFL operates on a completely different level with cable channel regionalization. Their interests are too diverse and distant for a Harris-Blitzer television venture to make sense, and they would face the same problem if Altice demanded they be packaged as a premium channel. I was hoping they would sell their broadcast rights to YES Network last year, but now they have been stuck on a darkened channel for years. Perhaps this situation could drag on long enough for them to be legally released from the deal and find alternative coverage, as Steinbrenner did, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

World Juniors and how ESPN, the NHL and the IIHF have failed to promote hockey

The United States Under-20 Team took home the gold medal in 2025 World Juniors Championship last night, but I was barely able to watch any of the tournament thanks to the lack of effort by the IIHF, NHL and their broadcast partners in promoting hockey. In the United States, unless you subscribe to NHL Network, which is in the premium tier for most cable packages (where Optimum wants to move MSG, and also where DirectTV has it in their $119.99 tier), you wouldn't have had last night be able to watch the game without watching a bad live stream on YouTube or going to an illegal streaming site.

This despite ESPN having the ability to broadcast some of their games on ESPN+. Instead of simulcasting the games, with NHL Network subscribers able to watch on TV and ESPN+ subscribers able to watch on streaming, ESPN instead offered compelling top-level matches like Kazakhstan vs. Sweden, or whatever . The last match they broadcast there was a quarterfinal match between Sweden and Latvia, and they broadcast zero matches involving the United States or Canada. I checked out the first game they had there, but once I figured they wouldn't put a North American game on there, I stopped looking.

There is never a shortage of college football or basketball to watch on television, and ESPN always makes sure they get as much of it as possible on ESPN+. So why did they bother pursuing the NHL broadcast rights if they weren't going to show any interest in expanding coverage of an international tournament as big as World Juniors? They, with their significant stake in TSN, would certainly understand the value of making this available, especially since TSN broadcasts IIHF games in Canada.

If these people were serious about the growth of hockey in the United States, Bob Wischusen would have mentioned Teddy Stiga's golden goal on ESPN+ with some simulcasts on TV. Perhaps the Americans, who have won the tournament two years in a row, might also want to watch the matches. It's bad enough that Hockey Canada has entrenched itself enough in the IIHF to require the games to be staged every two years, limiting the number of times America can host, but they don't even bother to give us broad available broadcasts.

The Winter Classic and the NHL's refusal to move on from the teams of yesteryear

Shocker: Expansion teams and bad teams don't get ratings. The Winter Classic matchup between the Chicago Blackhawks, who are on their way to another top-3 draft pick, and the St. Louis Blues, a mediocre team, drew a record 920,000 viewers on TNT and truTV. Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch writes:

The Blues' win, which peaked at 1.2 million in the 6:45 PM ET quarter, fell 16% from last year's previous low (Golden Knights-Kraken: 1.10 million) and 48% from compared to Penguins-Bruins two years ago (1.78 million).

The NHL's decisions to continue giving these games away to their favorite franchises, the Chicago Blackhawks and expansion teams, are destroying their ratings. The Golden Knights' fan base, despite all the immediate success the team received, was apparently too small to warrant a Winter Classic appearance so early in its existence. But worse than a good team that not many people watch is a bad team that almost no one watches.

Maybe, just maybe, teams that are currently successful (or at least were). expected to be halfway decent this season) should get these matches. Why not a Devils-Capitals game at Nationals Park or SHI Stadium? Why not a Kings-Wild game at Target Field? Why not the Colorado avalanche? Why not the Florida Panthers? Why not a cross-border battle between the Oilers and a good American team?

Actually the NHL surpassed the clinching game of the NBA Finals with its Game 7 ratings, where more than 16 million people in North America watched the Panthers beat that Oilers, with the NBA Finals reaching just 75% of that number. (The World series between the Yankees And Evaders also outperformed the NHL and NBA(with Game 5 reaching two million more viewers than the NHL, although international ratings reached over 30 million). With the right marketing, the NHL is right there to draw millions of eyes to it on a regular basis. But by burying their heads in the sand, rewarding bad (and unsavory) teams, and not making broadcasts widely available, the sport remains in limbo, while the MLB and NFL have no problem pushing the right buttons press.

Your thoughts

Have you been personally affected by Optimums' decisions? Can you watch the Devils? Have you seen the Winter Classic or World Juniors? Will you pay more money to keep watching games, or will you wait out the ordeal? Leave your thoughts in the comments below and thanks for reading.