NHL looks to capitalize on unique season with "NHL Revealed" series
On January 23rd, 2014, the NHL will debut a new reality television series in partnership with CBC and NBC Sports Network. "NHL Revealed" will follow nine NHL teams as they prepare for and play in the five non-Winter Classic outdoor games this season (four of those games are dubbed the Coors Light Stadium Series, while the Canadian version is called the Tim Hortons NHL Heritage Classic).
"We're really excited not only about the project but actually about the whole year," NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins told reporters on Tuesday. "It's a season like no other. That's part of the reason we wanted to do this."
This NHL season is easily the most ambitious in recent memory. The NHL will host six outdoor games this season, and many of the league's top players will compete on the world stage at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
"The Olympics is such a great platform and the players love playing in it," Collins said on Tuesday. "So the question is how can we use it to grow the league brand and also keep the momentum going in our business?"
The league obviously believes that "NHL Revealed" can be a big part of the answer to that question, and it helps that their partners on the project (CBC and NBC) are the Olympic broadcast rights holders in North America. "The IOC ultimately said that if NBC and CBC are comfortable with it, then we're comfortable with it," Collins explained.
The "NHL Revealed" series will have big shoes to fill in looking to build on the critical successes of HBO's similar "24/7" series. While the executive producers on the series - Ross Greenburg, Julie Bristow and Steve Mayer - are quick to admit that "24/7 set the bar," they're also adamant that "NHL Revealed" will succeed in differentiating itself from HBO's well loved product.
"We'll be involved in the transition," said Greenburg on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. "Players like Evgeni Malkin and Sidney Crosby will be teammates early in the series and then will find themselves across the ice from each other (at the Olympics), and will then rejoin each other as teammates."
"We think this series will give us some opportunities that we didn't have from 24/7."
One immediate disadvantage for "NHL Revealed", however, will be the inability of a show broadcast on CBC and NBC to depict the creative and vibrant use of foul language that has been a clear strength of the 24/7 series.
"For the most part we will use beeps to cover up any language that would be unsuitable for CBC and NBC," said Greenburg. "Having said that, you may hear many beeps, because the fact is we want to depict what's going on in the locker rooms and on the ice as much as possible."