{"id":471133,"date":"2026-02-25T12:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T12:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/471133\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T12:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T12:38:13","slug":"bettman-seeks-better-timeslot-for-next-olympic-hockey-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/471133\/","title":{"rendered":"Bettman seeks better timeslot for next Olympic hockey final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NHL\u2019s return to \u201cbest on best\u201d Olympic competition was close to a best-case scenario for the league, but commissioner Gary Bettman still sees room for improvement.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/02\/24\/gary-bettman-nhl-eyeing-highlight-rights-better-start-times-at-future-olympics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Appearing at the Sports Business Journal National Sports Forum Tuesday<\/a>, Bettman reportedly advocated for a later start time for the next Olympic men\u2019s hockey final, which takes place from Nice, France, in four years \u2014 the same time zone as Milan, Italy, where this year\u2019s Olympic competition took place.<\/p>\n<p>Last Sunday\u2019s United States-Canada men\u2019s hockey gold medal game began at 8 AM ET \u2014 2 PM local time \u2014 the earliest for the Olympic men\u2019s hockey final since a 6:30 AM ET start from Sochi in 2014. The start time was much earlier than the last time the U.S. and Canada met in the gold medal game 16 years go in Vancouver, a North American Olympics that allowed for a mid-afternoon start.<\/p>\n<p>While the game still <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsmediawatch.com\/2026\/02\/olympic-mens-hockey-final-most-watched-2010-united-states-canada\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">attracted an outsized audience of 18.6 million viewers<\/a> across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, that was well short of the nearly 28 million who watched in 2010. Bettman said this year\u2019s numbers were \u201cterrific,\u201d but added that he has been told \u201cby reliable sources\u201d that the audience \u201ccould\u2019ve been twice as high.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Plenty of this year\u2019s Olympic events, including hockey games, took place in the midday hours. But with the men\u2019s hockey game the final event of the Games, it had to take place early enough to allow players to attend the Closing Ceremony.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are things we can do based on this experience and our relationship with the IIHF and the IOC that can make it an even more impactful event for hockey,\u201d Bettman said, as recounted by Alex Silverman of Sports Business Journal. He also addressed the NHL\u2019s lack of highlight rights during the Games, saying that \u201cit isn\u2019t good if the NHL disappears for two and a half weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The NHL returned to Olympic competition this year after holding its players out of the 2018 and 2022 Games. The United States won the competition for the first time since 1980.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NHL\u2019s return to \u201cbest on best\u201d Olympic competition was close to a best-case scenario for the league,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471134,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[5,2967,15262],"class_list":{"0":"post-471133","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-nhl-schedule","10":"tag-olympic-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116131312713526224","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471133"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471133\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}