XM Radio Inks $100 Mln Slapshot with NHL

XM Radio is paying $100 million to broadcast 10 years of National Hockey League games. This for a league which lost its 2004-2005 season!

XM Satellite Radio announced today that it has reached a 10-year, $100 million agreement with the National Hockey League to the rights to broadcast NHL games, starting in October 2005. Canadian Satellite Radio (CSR), XM’s Canadian broadcasting partner, is funding an unspecified portion of the agreement.

XM’s deal with the NHL adds to the broadcaster’s portfolio of sports offerings, which also include Nascar auto racing, PGA Tour golf, and Major League Baseball. XM says it plans to provide play-by-play coverage of more than 1,000 games each season—including NHL All-Star Game, the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the Stanley Cup Final—on a dedicated NHL channel. XM also plans to roll out a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week NHL talk radio channel.

XM’s primary competitor, Sirius Satellite Radio, has rights to NHL games through the 2006-2007 season. Both XM and Sirius will carry the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons; thereafter, XM will have exclusive rights to broadcast NHL games.

The National Hockey League is struggling to recover from the cancellation of its entire 2004-2005 season over a labor dispute, the first time in North America an entire season of a major professional sports league has been lost to a contract dispute. The lockout ended in July 2005 after 310 days when NHL players and owners ratified a new collective bargaining agreement.