NHL on Fox

History

On the heels of its surprise acquisition of the television rights to the National Football League (NFL) in December 1993, Fox sought deals with other major sports leagues to expand its newly created sports division, opting to go after the rights to broadcast National Hockey League (NHL) games. CBS, which had just lost its NFL package (which primarily included the rights to regular season and playoff games from the National Football Conference) to Fox and had also lost its Major League Baseball and college football rights to other networks, was Fox's primary competitor for the NHL package, hoping to replace some of the sports programming it had lost to Fox.

Nevertheless, in a serious blow to CBS, Fox outbid CBS for the NHL package as well. On September 9, 1994, the NHL reached a five-year contract with Fox for the broadcast television rights to the league's games, beginning with the 1994–95 season. Fox paid $155 million ($31 million annually) to televise NHL regular season and postseason games, considerably less than the $1.58 billion Fox paid for the NFL television rights.

The NHL's initial deal with Fox was significant, as a U.S. network television contract was long thought unattainable for the league during the presidency of John Ziegler. For 17 years after the 1975 Finals were broadcast on NBC, there would be no national over-the-air network coverage of the NHL in the United States (except for the 1979 Challenge Cup and Game 6 of the 1980 Stanley Cup Finals on CBS, and NBC's coverage of the NHL All-Star Game from 1990 to 1994) and only spotty coverage on regional networks. This was because no network was willing to commit to carrying a large number of games, in turn providing low ratings for NHL telecasts. ABC would eventually resume the network broadcasting of regular NHL games (on a time buy basis through ESPN) for the 1992–93 season. This continued through the 1993–94 season before Fox took over for the next five seasons.

Fox inaugurated its NHL coverage on April 2, 1995, toward the end of the 1994–95 regular season, with six games (between the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers; St. Louis Blues and Detroit Red Wings; Boston Bruins and Washington Capitals; Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars; Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning; and the San Jose Sharks and Mighty Ducks of Anaheim). Mike Emrick and John Davidson were the lead broadcast team, and Joe Micheletti served as the reporter for national game broadcasts on Fox, while regionally-distributed games were handled by a variety of announcers, in addition to the trio. For the first four years of the deal, James Brown hosted the show and Dave Maloney was the studio analyst from the Fox Network Center studios in Los Angeles. For the fifth and final season, Suzy Kolber served as the studio host and Terry Crisp served as the studio analyst. Occasionally, active NHL players such as Mike Modano would serve as guest analysts.

FoxTrax

Fox's NHL broadcasts are perhaps best remembered for its use of FoxTrax (colloquially called the "glow puck," "smart puck," or "super puck"), a specialized ice hockey puck designed for the network's NHL telecasts which featured internal electronics that allowed its position to be tracked. It was primarily used to visually highlight the puck on-screen and display a trail when the puck was moving rapidly. The FoxTrax puck, while considered to be generally popular according to Fox Sports, generated a great deal of controversy and criticism, especially in Canada, from longtime fans of the game, and was ridiculed by comedians on both sides of the border.

Stanley Cup playoff coverage

During the first two rounds of the playoffs, at least two games were aired each round and were distributed regionally, unless other series involving other scheduled games were already finished, in which case the telecast was broadcast nationally. Canadian viewers were upset over the apparent preference that the NHL had for Fox ahead of CBC Television in regards to the scheduling of playoff games; Montreal Gazette sports journalist Pat Hickey wrote that the schedule was "just another example of how the N.H.L. snubs its nose at the country that invented hockey and its fans."

All-Star Game, Conference Finals, and Stanley Cup Finals

For the All-Star Game, Conference Finals, and Stanley Cup Finals, the games (which were national telecasts) were hosted from the arena. The 1996 and 1997 All-Star Games were televised in prime time.

Stanley Cup Finals

Fox split coverage of the Stanley Cup Finals with ESPN. Game 1 of the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals was the first Finals game shown on network television since 1980 and the first in prime time since 1973. Games 1, 5, and 7 were usually scheduled to be televised by Fox; and Games 2, 3, 4, and 6 were set to air on ESPN. However, from 1995 to 1998, the Finals matches were all four game sweeps; the 1999 Finals ended in six games. The consequence was that – except for 1995 when Fox did televise Game 4 – the decisive game was never shown on network television. Perhaps in recognition of this, Games 3–7 were always televised by ABC in the succeeding broadcast agreement between the NHL and ABC Sports/ESPN.

Game 4 of the 1995 Finals was notable because not only did the New Jersey Devils win the Stanley Cup, but also the team's main television play-by-play announcer, Mike Emrick, announced it.

KTVU, the Fox affiliate in the San Francisco Bay Area, dropped Game 4 of the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals (June 24) for a San Francisco Giants game. The game between the Giants and Florida Marlins in Miami had a long rain delay. This allowed KTVU to broadcast the hockey game after all. However, the baseball game finally started before the hockey game ended. KTVU got a lot of complaints, so they re-aired the end of the hockey game the following Saturday (July 1).

The end of ''NHL on Fox''

Things ended badly between Fox and the league in 1999, when the NHL announced a new television deal with ESPN that also called for sister broadcast network ABC to become the new network television partner (as previously mentioned). Fox challenged that it had not been given a chance to match the network component of the deal, but ABC ultimately prevailed.

Fox placed a bid for NHL broadcast rights when they came up for renewal in 2011 but dropped out of the running as a result of a bidding war between NBCUniversal and ESPN. The bid made by NBCUniversal (which owns NBC, Versus and USA Network and, through its ownership of the Philadelphia Flyers, a stake in the league itself) was selected by the league, in a ten-year extension of its existing broadcast contract.

After Disney acquired the entertainment unit 21st Century Fox (excluding the main network and sports units) in 2019, it resold the regional Fox Sports Networks to Sinclair Broadcast Group, which maintained the rights on some NHL teams. In 2021, Sinclair rebranded the channels as Bally Sports.

In August 2019, Fox Sports SVP/sales Mark Evans told The Big Lead that Fox would be interested in pursuing NHL media rights when they became available.

In April 2021, Fox Sports was reportedly considered a front-runner to acquire the NHL's "B" package after ABC and ESPN acquired the "A" package from NBC; the rights would ultimately go to Turner Sports.

After the bankruptcy of Bally Sports in 2023, Bally Sports SoCal (the former Fox Sports Prime Ticket) lost the rights to the Anaheim Ducks broadcasts and its local games moved to the Fox-owned station, KCOP-TV, starting the 2024–25 season.

Coverage overview

Regular season

Fox televised between 5 and 11 regionally distributed games on Saturday or Sunday afternoons during the regular season, where anywhere from 2 to 6 games ran concurrently. All times below are Eastern, please note that the 6pm ET games were aired on FOX stations on the West Coast only.

Personnel

Play-by-play

• Kenny Albert
• Mike Emrick
• Pat Foley
• Randy Hahn
• Rick Jeanneret
• John Kelly
• Mike Lange
• Josh Lewin
• Jiggs McDonald
• Bob Miller
• Howie Rose
• Sam Rosen
• Dick Stockton
• Dave Strader

Color commentators

• Terry Crisp
• John Davidson
• Mike Eruzione
• Jim Fox
• Gary Green
• Brian Hayward
• Joe Micheletti
• Peter McNab
• Greg Millen
• Denis Potvin
• Daryl Reaugh
• Mickey Redmond
• Pete Stemkowski
• Craig Simpson
• Paul Steigerwald

Studio commentators

• James Brown – studio host (1994–1998)
• Sandra Neil - fill-in studio host/rinkside reporter (1996)
• Terry Crisp – color commentary/studio analyst (1998–1999)
• Suzy Kolber – studio host (1998–1999)
• Dave Maloney – studio analyst (1994–1998)

Reporters

• Joe Micheletti
• Sandra Neil
• Craig Simpson

Ratings

Stanley Cup Finals

Game 4 of the 1995 Stanley Cup Finals drew a 4.7 rating and a 10 share. In the New York City market (on Fox owned-and-operated station WNYW), the game drew a 10.6 rating and 21 share; in Detroit (on Fox affiliate, now owned-and-operated station, WJBK), it drew a 14.1 rating and 26 share.

Regular season

All-Star Game

NHL coverage on other Fox-owned outlets

Fox owned-and-operated television stations

Main article: Fox Television Stations, Owned-and-operated television stations in the United States, Historical NHL over-the-air television broadcasters

Fox Sports Networks owned-and-operated affiliates

Former regional rightsholders

Notes

References

References

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15. Casselberry, Ian. (October 20, 2017). "Maybe Fox's glow puck was ahead of its time and should be brought back".
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