{"id":181284,"date":"2025-08-28T02:20:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T02:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/181284\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T02:20:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T02:20:09","slug":"nhl-benefits-from-tnt-losing-nba-espn-ditching-mlb","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/181284\/","title":{"rendered":"NHL benefits from TNT losing NBA, ESPN ditching MLB"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL is finding itself in a more favorable situation entering the 2025-26 season as its broadcast partners lose other live sports properties.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/08\/27\/nhl-adds-23-national-tv-windows-in-us-for-2025-26-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a report by Alex Silverman in Sports Business Journal<\/a>, the NHL\u2019s national media partners at TNT Sports and ESPN will broadcast an additional 16 national windows compared to last season. TNT will account for 13 such broadcasts, with ESPN adding three. All told, TNT will air 72 NHL games (up from 59 last season), while ESPN\u2019s networks will air 53 games (up from 50 last season).<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the primary reason for the increase in national telecasts is the live sports that both TNT and ESPN won\u2019t be airing. TNT Sports is entering its first year without an NBA package in nearly four decades, creating programming gaps that hockey can easily fill. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmediawatch.com\/2025\/08\/nhl-national-tv-schedule-espn-sunday-night-baseball-tnt-nba\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch reports<\/a> that TNT will air NHL games on 14 Tuesday nights this upcoming season, after that night was traditionally reserved for NBA games. The network will even add a Thursday night NHL game on October 30. Wednesday, however, remains the primary night for NHL coverage on TNT.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">With the NBA off TNT Sports, the network has more room for the NHL. Most games this season will now air on Tuesdays &amp; Wednesdays:<\/p>\n<p>Monday: 2 games<br \/>Tuesday: 25 games<br \/>Wednesday: 35 games<br \/>Thursday: 1 game<br \/>Friday: 2 games<br \/>Sunday: 7 games<\/p>\n<p>*Tripleheader on Tuesday, Dec. 23*<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Braylon Breeze (@Braylon_Breeze) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Braylon_Breeze\/status\/1960794405557952580?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 27, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>ESPN is also modifying its NHL schedule to fill the scheduling gaps created by exiting its Sunday Night Baseball deal with MLB. The network has scheduled an NHL doubleheader on Sunday, April 5, a night that would have traditionally been reserved for baseball. However, as NHL reporter Braylon Breeze notes, the network will still largely neglect the league in November and December, scheduling just one national game.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">As usual with this TV deal, ESPN\u2019s NHL schedule is extremely front and back-loaded \u2014 with *zero* games on ESPN\u2019s linear networks in November and just one in December.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN\/ABC Games by Month:\u2070Oct: 10\u2070Nov: 0\u2070Dec: 1\u2070Jan: 8\u2070Feb: 6\u2070Mar: 14\u2070Apr: 14<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Braylon Breeze (@Braylon_Breeze) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Braylon_Breeze\/status\/1960739123775357042?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">August 27, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Considering that <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/nhl\/regular-season-viewership-down-espn-tnt.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">regular-season NHL ratings took quite a hit<\/a> last season, any additional national windows have to be seen as a win for the league, even if these are decisions being made because of circumstances that are largely outside of their control.<\/p>\n<p>\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL is finding itself in a more favorable situation entering the 2025-26 season as its broadcast partners&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":181285,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,102260,102261,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-181284","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-nhl-on-espn","10":"tag-nhl-on-tnt","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115104004503482567","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181284"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181284\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}