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NHL business notebook: How local streaming could impact the viewing experience, 3ICE finishes first season

You have to look ahead to understand the importance of Tuesday’s announcement by Monumental Sports & Entertainment that it would be buying the regional sports network NBC Sports Washington.

It’s about television rights, digital distribution, and future branding for Monumental, which owns the NHL’s Washington Capitals, NBA’s Washington Wizards, and WNBA’s Washington Mystics.

“We really see a lot of potential upside in the future,” said Zach Leonsis, president of media and new enterprises for Monumental. “We want to continue to enhance the fan experience and that’s really what most of that investment is going towards with this purchase.”

In the short term, things won’t look any different for consumers in the Washington DC market. Monumental already owned 33 percent of NBC Sports Washington dating back to 2016, and for up to the next 18 months NBCUniversal will assist in the operation of the network, including technical resources and production facilities.

Big changes, like rebranding the network, are more likely to take place before the 2023-24 NHL and NBA seasons. Monumental will merge its current Monumental Sports Network with NBC Sports Washington. That digital offering housed additional Capitals and Wizards content in the past but did not have the rights for live NHL and NBA games.

The other key for Monumental will eventually be diving into the direct-to-consumer streaming space for live NHL and NBA games. Leonsis wouldn’t give any exact details on plans for that but did say building a digital platform that delivers in that capacity will be a key focus for the soon-to-be-renamed network.

“We want to be really thoughtful about how we distribute games in the future,” Leonsis said. “Obviously, we’ve got deep relationships in the linear world with our affiliate distributors and whatnot. We want to work hand in hand on what that future looks like. I think that clearly digital and streaming has an important future in the future of sports rights and the distribution of sports rights.”

Streaming has been a key space for the NHL in the past 12 months. The national television deal with ESPN included streaming national exclusive games on ESPN+ and Hulu, while the deal with Turner also has digital rights that have yet to be developed. In-market streaming has been a bit trickier to figure out.

Networks that hold television rights don’t necessarily hold digital rights, and in other sports — baseball in particular — it’s led to some consumer confusion about whether a service could actually carry a live game.

In hockey, direct-to-consumer RSNs will be a fact of life this season. NESN launched the NESN 360 platform that will carry Boston Bruins games, while the Sinclair-owned Bally Sports worked to acquire extended digital NHL rights in its most recent deal, which it plans to use as the backbone for its new direct-to-consumer streaming. service Bally Sports+.

As part of the deal, Bally Sports+ will be able to stream in-market games for the Anaheim Ducks, Arizona Coyotes, Carolina Hurricanes, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, Detroit Red Wings, Florida Panthers, Los Angeles Kings, Minnesota Wild, Nashville Predators, St. Louis Blues, and Tampa Bay Lightning.

Bally Sports+ costs $19.99 per month or $189.99 per year.

Sinclair isn’t officially working in tandem with ESPN on this, but one television source said Bally Sports+’s long-term success depends on creating a “normalized streaming environment” where the two streaming services cover enough gaps for the fan to watch a majority of their team’s regular-season games.

At this point, Turner Sports, the other national carrier in the United States, hasn’t launched a direct-to-consumer option — all streaming must be done with a television subscription login — which creates a problem for the true cord cutter after the first round of the NHL playoffs.

In addition to more streaming, alternate feeds and gamification will also likely be in the works for Monumental’s television venture. Capital One Arena has a sportsbook on its premises, Ceasars Sportsbook, which will also have space on the Capitals jerseys when advertising patches make their NHL debut this season.

Monumental will also use the platform to elevate its other sports properties, particularly beefing up the number of live WNBA games going to a more traditional TV audience in the DC area.

3ICE closes out first season

EJ Johnston doesn’t blame the skeptics for questioning 3ICE’s legitimacy. The founder and CEO of the three-on-three traveling summer professional hockey league knew that would be an early hurdle and embraced it as a challenge in the first season.

“I get it, it’s different, it’s new, and in hockey, it’s something that didn’t really fit with what’s been done before,” Johnston said. “It was more than understanding for people to wonder if this was real, and those who bought in right away have been pretty well rewarded.”

In particular, the players who have been part of the inaugural season have seen the most significant rewards.

Players on Team (Joe) Mullen on average made more than $40,000 in prize money during the eight-week regular season and were the favorites heading into the championship weekend in Las Vegas. Each member of the championship-winning team, Team (Bryan) Trottier, earned $127,000 in prize money. Some players based on individual awards — the league-leading goal scorer earned a $10,000 bonus — came close to $200,000 for less than 10 weeks of work.

This was always part of Johnston’s pitch to players, but since checks have been cleared, word of mouth among players has already eliminated the need to truly recruit a roster for Season 2.

“I’ve gone from having to make all the calls to getting the calls,” Johnston said. “Players want to be part of this. They hear about their buddies making $50,000 for eight Saturdays of work playing hockey, and they want to be part of that.”

For 3ICE’s player pool, that’s a significant chunk of change. The players in 3ICE are all between contracts, playing in Europe or the North American minor leagues, or semi-retired outside of the three-on-three summer league. A player on an NHL contract would not be allowed to play in the league based on the terms of his NHL deal.

This season, roughly one-third of the 3ICE players had NHL experience. Johnston said next season he expects that number to grow to 60 or 75 percent of the league. Eventually, he views 3ICE establishing itself as a viable option for bigger NHL names to move into a soft retirement.

But even with the current skill level, Johnston has described the first season as a success. The proof of concept has worked with vital partners — sponsors and television networks — and the championship game will be on CBS in the United States next Saturday. Dunkin’ joined as a major partner midway through the season, waiting to see what the league really was for three weeks before being willing to invest.

Johnston said his financial backers have been thrilled with the initial season and also have been accepting of the fact that profitability isn’t part of the plans until the third season of 3ICE.

After getting through the championship weekend, Johnston plans to tweak and figure out what works and what doesn’t for the league moving forward in other financial aspects. Attendance was never going to be the big financial draw for 3ICE initially, but getting more fans in the building for the second season will be a priority. At the last regular-season stop in Nashville, there were about 3,000 fans in Bridgestone Arena.

One potential solution could be repeated stops for 3ICE. In the first season, the league finished eight cities in the regular season, with Vegas’ Orleans Arena serving as the only repeat arena for both opening weekend and the championship.

(Photo: Amber Searls / USA Today)

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