Amazon, Tegna score NHL rights deals

Tegna’s Pacific Northwest stations acquire almost all Seattle Kraken games; Amazon is the new home of SportsNet’s “Monday Night Hockey” in Canada A pair of NHL deals on both sides of the border sent a huge body check to cable TV. On Thursday, the NHL’s Seattle Kraken announced a new television rights deal with MacLean, Va.-based broadcaster Tegna, with at […]

NBC Sports Chicago may vanish from Dish, DirecTV

Chicago to become next battleground in retrans battle between RSNs, satellite providers If you are going to gloat when Marquee launches with a lack of distribution while NBC Sports Chicago is in your Dish and DirecTV channel lineup, you might be in for a rude awaking come October 1. That’s because with the Cubs dropping out of the NBC Sports […]

Winter Classic shoots and scores in ratings

The third annual NHL Winter Classic which featured an outdoor game played at Wrigley Field between the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings drew an 2.9 Nielsen overnight household rating for NBC on New Year’s Day, up 12 percent from the 2007 Classic between Buffalo and Pittsburgh. Here in Chicago, WMAQ-TV notched an 11.8 household rating and 21 share – […]

Pat Foley returns to Blackhawks

The longtime voice of the Blackhawks is back. Pat Foley, who was unceremoniously dumped by the team in 2006 in a very unpopular move, has been re-hired as the play-by-play man on the Chicago Blackhawks’ television broadcasts beginning this fall. The move is the latest in fan-friendly overtures the Hawks are making to win back fans after years of alienating […]