{"id":844298,"date":"2026-08-05T10:34:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T10:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/844298\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T10:34:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T10:34:14","slug":"more-nhl-teams-turn-to-tv-simulcasts-for-radio-broadcasts-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/844298\/","title":{"rendered":"More NHL Teams Turn To TV Simulcasts For Radio Broadcasts. | Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Columbus (OH) Blue Jackets last week<\/a> became the fifth NHL team to abandon their radio play-by-play in favor of simulcasting its TV broadcast \u2013 following the Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars and St. Louis Blues \u2013 while the Toronto Maple Leafs\u2019 radio crew no longer travels with the team, calling road games from a Toronto studio.<\/p>\n

\u201cTeams 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\u2019s the way it\u2019s going to be,\u201d former Cincinnati Reds baseball and ACC basketball play-by-play announcer Marty Brennaman tells the New York Times<\/a>\u2019 The Athletic. \u201cThe result is a bunch of people losing their jobs, which really bothers me. If you\u2019re a hockey fan, you\u2019re going to be pissed off, but at the same time, you have to ask yourself, \u2018Am I going to stop listening or watching?\u2019 I don\u2019t think that\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some NHL teams such as the Blues, who moved to a TV simulcast a year ago, feel money wasn\u2019t the only factor. \u201cI definitely wouldn\u2019t characterize it as a cost-cutting move,\u201d the team\u2019s business CEO, Chris Zimmerman, says. \u201cAre there some costs saved by not having two separate productions? Sure. But when you look at the scope of our business, what we\u2019re investing in, how we\u2019re investing, it\u2019s just not the driver. This move wouldn\u2019t be happening unless it was part of a commitment to believe that we can be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the Blue Jackets, there were other circumstances, such as the shuttering of FanDuel Sports Network, which had broadcast the team\u2019s 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\u2019ve taken on the cost of putting together the broadcasts themselves while losing the rights fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe broadcast landscape has changed dramatically in recent years, and while that has created new ways for teams to connect with fans, it\u2019s also presented significant challenges from a business perspective,\u201d Blue Jackets VP of broadcasting and business intelligence Marc Gregory says. \u201cThe end to our partnership with FanDuel is obviously a big part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Nickson, who served as the voice of the NHL\u2019s 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. \u201cI went to the producers and asked them, \u2018How do you want me to do this?’\u201d he says. \u201cI 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\u2019t want to just discard that as an afterthought. There are so many people who are going to say, \u2018Well, it\u2019s TV. Radio is going to get what it gets.\u2019 But for a radio purist like me, that\u2019s not what I want to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Blue Jackets\u2019 Bob McElligott, who was in the radio booth for 17 years until his dismissal last week<\/a>, feels there is still value to offering a separate radio play-by-play. \u201cPeople like to say that radio is dying or it\u2019s going away, but tell that to the people I\u2019ve heard from since I was let go. I heard from so many people who said, \u2018I listened to you while I drove my kid back and forth from hockey practice.\u2019 Or, \u2018I had you on all the time while I was working second or third shift at the plant.\u2019 It was people who love the Blue Jackets, but can\u2019t always watch the games on TV.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Columbus (OH) Blue Jackets last week became the fifth NHL team to abandon their radio play-by-play in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":844299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,17846,44,575,85],"class_list":["post-844298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-free","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=844298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/844298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/844299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=844298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=844298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=844298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}