The Columbus (OH) Blue Jackets last week became the fifth NHL team to abandon their radio play-by-play in favor of simulcasting its TV broadcast – following the Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues – while the Toronto Maple Leafs’ radio crew no longer travels with the team, calling road games from a Toronto studio.
“Teams are looking for any way they can find now to save money, and if they can eliminate an entire broadcasting crew and go with one, that’s the way it’s going to be,” former Cincinnati Reds baseball and ACC basketball play-by-play announcer Marty Brennaman tells the New York Times’ The Athletic. “The result is a bunch of people losing their jobs, which really bothers me. If you’re a hockey fan, you’re going to be pissed off, but at the same time, you have to ask yourself, ‘Am I going to stop listening or watching?’ I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Some NHL teams such as the Blues, who moved to a TV simulcast a year ago, feel money wasn’t the only factor. “I definitely wouldn’t characterize it as a cost-cutting move,” the team’s business CEO, Chris Zimmerman, says. “Are there some costs saved by not having two separate productions? Sure. But when you look at the scope of our business, what we’re investing in, how we’re investing, it’s just not the driver. This move wouldn’t be happening unless it was part of a commitment to believe that we can be better.”
For the Blue Jackets, there were other circumstances, such as the shuttering of FanDuel Sports Network, which had broadcast the team’s TV games before filing for bankruptcy in 2025. As a result, the Jackets are among several NHL teams planning to produce their own games for local TV in conjunction with the NHL this coming season, meaning they’ve taken on the cost of putting together the broadcasts themselves while losing the rights fees.
“The broadcast landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and while that has created new ways for teams to connect with fans, it’s also presented significant challenges from a business perspective,” Blue Jackets VP of broadcasting and business intelligence Marc Gregory says. “The end to our partnership with FanDuel is obviously a big part of that.”
Nick Nickson, who served as the voice of the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings for 45 seasons, has been acutely aware of the difference between the play-by-play for radio vs. TV, especially when handling simulcasted TV broadcasts. “I went to the producers and asked them, ‘How do you want me to do this?’” he says. “I cut it back a little bit (for TV), but I was always aware that there was an audience listening but not watching. I tried to cover both of my bases, and I did that because working in radio for so many years, I didn’t want to just discard that as an afterthought. There are so many people who are going to say, ‘Well, it’s TV. Radio is going to get what it gets.’ But for a radio purist like me, that’s not what I want to hear.”
The Blue Jackets’ Bob McElligott, who was in the radio booth for 17 years until his dismissal last week, feels there is still value to offering a separate radio play-by-play. “People like to say that radio is dying or it’s going away, but tell that to the people I’ve heard from since I was let go. I heard from so many people who said, ‘I listened to you while I drove my kid back and forth from hockey practice.’ Or, ‘I had you on all the time while I was working second or third shift at the plant.’ It was people who love the Blue Jackets, but can’t always watch the games on TV.”