The largest source of revenue for a professional sports franchise comes from television deals. So understandably the decision on where the new Las Vegas franchise chooses to show their games is a huge topic of discussion.
Any regional sports network that the new Vegas NHL team might create wouldn’t provide much value with only hockey games on its broadcast schedule. So what is a fledgling NHL expansion club to do in boosting the market and possibly create a bidding war for its TV rights package? According to a media consultant Ourand spoke with, add a baseball team to the deal. –Ian Casselberry, AwfulAnnouncing.com
The original article if from The Sports Business Journal, but because that article is behind a paywall, we’ll have to settle with it coming from another source. The idea is for the “Black Knight Sports Network” to team up with a Major League Baseball team to offer live events nearly 200 days out of the year. Six MLB teams claim Las Vegas to be part of their market so finding one shouldn’t be too hard.
However, it really appears to me this is a long term solution while the short term solution is simply this, but in reverse. Fox Sports affiliates in Arizona and Los Angeles have the Coyotes, Ducks, and Kings. They also air teams like the Angels, Diamondbacks, Suns, Clippers, and a ton of collegiate teams. Fitting Las Vegas hockey into the mix there would be tough.
