Deals for exclusive mobile video rights to Verizon Wireless and Bell Mobility made sense for the National Hockey League in 2007. Now they are the reason for the greatest gap in a North American digital strategy aimed at growing audience as well as dollars. The NHL hopes to bridge that…

The National Hockey League is looking to a programming vet from the National Football League to pull its content strategy together and execute it across all platforms. Charles Coplin is joining the NHL as EVP-content, a new position that reports to COO John Collins. Coplin’s responsibilities include NHL.com; NHL Network;…

Our six-month trial for Sirius XM (NSDQ: SIRI) expired May 24—and the company’s flawed customer service may keep it dark. My own experience with Sirius XM’s efforts to convert trial subs that come with new cars into paying customers already if had me wondering if the company could do better…

Like other leagues, the NHL continues to see a major uptick in video use and is looking for ways to make the most of it with fans and advertisers. Once heralded as the up-and-coming video player for the National Hockey League, the NHL Network Online is being benched today in…

The Stanley Cup playoffs weren’t very kind to my hometown St. Louis Blues, swept by the Vancouver Canucks, but so far the post-season has been a winner for the NHL’s online video sales. Using a mix of database and contextual marketing, the league tells paidContent it has been able to…

A week ago today, college basketball fans tuned into the NCAA March Madness on Demand video players by the hundreds of thousands for the opening day of the annual tourney courtesy of CBSSports.com. The Sweet Sixteen tips off tonight—likely with considerably less online video demand because of the later timing…

Back in December, Bob Bowman told me that Major League Baseball Advanced Media planned to cut subscription prices for the 2009 season by at least 20 percent as a response to economic hard times. That was then. The pricing announced for this year does include a pay cut for annual…

There’s a common theme that undercuts everything the National Hockey League does in the digital space: Of course they’re being innovative, what do they have to lose? NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman took issue with that idea this morning in a Q&A with our co-editor and EVP Staci D. Kramer. “I…

Usually the new-look focus at the start of a hockey season is on the teams—or in some cases, the owners. This year, NHL.com, the National Hockey League’s online headquarters, gets in on the action with the Wednesday launch of a public beta version, live subscription game video viewable from any…

The ongoing saga of Madison Square Garden’s dispute with the National Hockey league continues: New York Rangers, run by MSG LP, which in turn is a Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) Systems unit, filed an anti-trust lawsuit last year alleging that NHL was violating antitrust laws by seeking to control the team’s…

The National Hockey League continues its aggressive broadband push with a new video player for nhl.com, more ad options and a batch of channels timed to launch when the 2008 Stanley Cup playoffs begin Wednesday. This week’s launch includes access to three years of archived clips by date and player,…

A federal judge denied MSG’s request for a preliminary injunction against the National Hockey League Friday, leaving the Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) unit scoreless thus far in its efforts to block the league from operating the official NY Rangers’ site. (via Sports Business Journal sub. req.) MSG went to court against…

I could only hint at this the other day when I was writing about MLB’s issues with the Slingbox. Sling Media has its first deal with a professional sports league—the NHL (the CBS (NYSE: CBS) of sports in terms of experimenting digitally) will take part in its Clip+Sling feature for…