SIMMONS: Canadian hockey fans the losers in Rogers’ $11-billion NHL deal

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The real loser in the hugely expensive deal to keep hockey on Rogers Sportsnet for the next 12 years is the Canadian fan.

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This can’t be what the hockey fan wants. This can’t be what the fan was hoping for.

The fan is smarter, more sophisticated, more educated, more network-savvy than ever before and Sportsnet brings hockey on the cheap to Canada.

It doesn’t push limits with its coverage. It has turned the incredible untouchable brand that was Hockey Night in Canada — the brand of all Canadian brands — into just another television show.

And, in this case overall, commissioner Gary Bettman probably doesn’t care.

ALSO READ: Everything you need to know about the new Rogers-NHL deal

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He doesn’t care much for what you think of the pedestrian coverage Sportsnet has brought to hockey over the past decade or more.

Normally, Bettman does just about everything right to build his business. He rarely makes the wrong deal or a bad deal.

But this 12-year, $11-billion deal — looked upon by some insiders as an April Fool’s Joke when it was first reported by Sportico on Monday — is a slap in the face to every hockey-watching, hockey-caring, hockey-loving fan in this hockey-crazed country of ours.

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It has been reported the deal is worth $11 billion, but two sources indicated Tuesday the actual deal may be even larger than that.

Rogers Sportsnet shocked the hockey world 12 years ago when it swept in and came away with exclusive rights to NHL games in Canada. No one saw that coming.

At first we waited to see what they would become with this new coverage and, more than a decade later, we’ve seen too little of significance.

We’ve watched a product in decline or certainly stagnate when compared to the work done at other networks, such as TNT in the United States or TSN in Canada.

How is it that TNT, based in Atlanta of all places, just started at hockey a few years ago and already has surpassed anything Sportsnet offers up?

Having watched Sportsnet hockey since it became the sole rightsholder, I honestly waited for a breakthrough. I waited for something special to happen, but all that happened was chopping and more chopping, a product lessened by cost-cutting over time.

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The big names gone — Don Cherry, Glenn Healy, George Stromboulopoulos, Jeff Marek, Christine Simpson — everybody knows about that.

The names you don’t know about are from behind the scenes. The producers of quality are gone. The directors of quality are gone. The Sherali Najaks gone. The on-air voices of dissent mostly gone. Almost anything that cost too much, gone.

When Sportsnet began with hockey, there was the belief they would push the limits with their game coverage and their off-day coverage. One of their first games, they had Sidney Crosby playing in Toronto.

In that game, Sportsnet utilized a rail camera, a star camera to follow Crosby, a bench camera, an isolation camera — all in addition to the regular game cameras. It was an ambitious approach to begin the new deal with.

The next day, the cameras were taken out. The cost of operation was too large. Some nights on the road, Sportsnet has had three cameras on broadcasts in which TNT or ESPN might have 12 or 15.

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All this happening at a time when Canadian NHL teams are on the rise. In Toronto, Edmonton and Winnipeg, there is some realistic hope this will be a Stanley Cup season. There is incredible optimism with growing teams in Ottawa and Montreal. The climate for Canadian hockey has never been this volatile and excitable.

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Which makes the Sportsnet deal all the more damning. Why, if TSN does hockey better — on television and on radio — does the NHL do business elsewhere? And why would Bettman make a singular deal with just one network when many thought the NFL’s model of utilizing as many networks as possible, including streaming services, seems to be the way professional sports is going?

Another thing that doesn’t make sense: Rogers apparently lost money on the $5.2-billion deal it originally signed with the NHL. Now this deal is $11 billion for the same number of years. How does a publicly traded company explain that to shareholders?

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“I don’t know how they made any money on the last deal,” a television insider told me. “And this deal is for twice as much money. Someone is going to have to explain to me how this works.”

Clearly, Edward Rogers, king of Canadian sport, is a control freak.

He owns the Blue Jays and the stadium. He is about to own majority control of the Maple Leafs, the Raptors and the Scotiabank Arena. Sportsnet is under his control, the key word being control.

Now, Rogers can own the Leafs, control the media, control the message, ostensibly turn Toronto hockey into an infomercial.

The reaction among those closely tied to hockey on television the past two days has gone from shock to disappointment back to shock.

“I’m stunned by this,” a television insider told me Tuesday. “I know for a fact the NHL has been disappointed in their coverage. Why they would go back to Sportsnet, who has done this on the cheap, is beyond me.”

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It’s beyond all of us.

Hockey Night In Canada wasn’t just a television show once upon a time. It used to be the program of record in hockey. It was the place for hockey’s best voices and brightest minds and for intermissions you watched closer than the games.

Those who worked on the program knew they were working on the best show in hockey. There was a certain swagger to the programming and by the programmers.

Only the best got on the network. Just not anymore.

Hockey Night used to be the best of the best and now it’s the cheapest of the cheap. Sportsnet killed that golden goose and has 12 more seasons now to try and get this right.

And, from here, zero belief that they can.

ssimmons@postmedia.com

x.com/simmonssteve

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