Skipping Olympics a bridge too far for Bettman?
Don’t look now but Gary Bettman may be running out of second acts.
The National Hockey League commissioner for life has spent a good deal of time pushing off the dodgy reality of his league’s place in the broadcast universe. He’s kept a marginal attraction afloat when ESPN and others ignore the league.
But could it be that the narrative he’s been fashioning lately is not playing?
If you read between the lines of remarks made at the recent Winter Olympics by Mark Lazarus, the chairman of NBC Broadcasting and Sports, the NHL’s absence at the Games is not the deft masterstroke Bettman thinks it is. In assessing a tepid product in South Korea, Lazurus referenced the absence of the NHL contributing to a drop in ratings “in the high 20s or low 30s” for NBC’s hockey coverage.