As if the National Hockey League doesn't have enough image problems, another one is brewing over its television policy that could pit the new administration against the old-guard owners.
At stake in Sunday's NHL Board of Governors meeting is whether the league can be dragged into the late 20th Century sports marketplace.
New NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and his new broadcasting chief, former Chicagoan Skip Prince, are trying to transform the league from a regional attraction into a national force. And the best way to do it, they figure, is through television.
At present, the league has a five-year agreement, but no signed formal contract, with ESPN for national cable rights through the Stanley Cup playoffs. As part of the original agreement, which began this season, ESPN's telecasts would not be blacked out in any markets for the final two playoff rounds.
But old-line owners, such as the Blackhawks' Bill Wirtz, want to keep things the way they are and are not only disputing the ambiguity of the ESPN agreement, but also want a blackout as a permanent part of a formal deal.
While ESPN officials aren't adamant about lifting the blackout restrictions, new league officers are.
"There is no ESPN contract in terms of a signed document," said Gene Gozdecki, an attorney for the Hawks. "The Blackhawks have blackout protection for all home games for all (playoff rounds)."
Countered Prince: "The resolution still isn't clear. The written word seems to contradict the understanding of at least one side. Everybody recognizes the document was supposed to be followed up by a more formal agreement."
According to Prince, a Chicago attorney before joining the NHL, the ESPN original deal allowed for home-team blackouts for the first and second rounds of the playoffs-but not for the all-important third and fourth rounds.
"One of the things I was hired to do was get the formal documentation," said Prince. "We are in the midst of that now. ESPN didn't want to spend months and months getting to an agreement that the new commissioner didn't like."
With Bettman now in place, Prince will be meeting with ESPN officials early next week to discuss the ambiguity in the original document and plans to allow pay-per-view telecasts for now "but make it very clear in the future we go about this differently."
Gozdecki said the confusion came in the haste for a new cable contract after the one with SportsChannel America expired last year. The league's previous administration of John Zeigler and Joel Nixon failed to get formal documentaton of the ESPN agreement.
"The Blackhawks were concerned about many things," said Gozdecki, "among them, what would our blackout protection rights be? Those rights are documented by the Member Club Agreement, which outlines the broadcasting rights of individual clubs. The blackout rights are ours to exercise."
And, to a certain extent, SportsChannel Chicago's, because the regional cable network has a long-term contract with the Hawks that covers all playoff games, home and away. "SportsChannel might insist we utilize our blackout protection," Gozdecki said. And, according to one SportsChannel official, it would. After all, SportsChannel is a partner with the Hawks in HawkVision, the pay-per-view production used by the team for the first time in last year's playoffs.
According to Prince, NHL playoff telecasts historically have "always been a state's rights issue. It has been from the clubs up because we truly never had the national clout. You have clubs who over the years have very carefully and creatively established fairly significant networks, to the point their local network is more important to them than anything the national (TV contract) could bring."
Prince added, however, he and Bettman "are focused on" changing that, "not because we want more power or more authority, but that we'd like the sport to have the kind of national cache. Which would mean there'd be a reason for the local clubs to give up their local broadcasting rights."
At present, Wirtz blacks out all regular-season home games and puts playoff home contests on pay-per-view, arguing he not only protects his local broadcasting rights, but his season-ticket base as well.
"The notion of pay-per-view protecting the fans you have is not as important in Chicago as it might be in Winnipeg," Prince said. "Chicago is an extraordinary sports market with an extraordinary fan base. What Bill has tried to do is create a nurtured season-ticket base that is so pampered and so exclusive it will come even when the team isn't winning.
"There's no question there's some long-term value in (Wirtz's) thinking. But from my standpoint, it makes the season-ticket base stale. You have to try hard to be a hockey fan in Chicago."