* They had a small national contract with NBC and showed top games on OLN, a tiny cable sports network that mostly showed fishing. * OLN became Versus, which later became NBCSN (after Comcast & NBC-Universal merged). NBC airs the higher-profile games (many playoff games, marquee weekend matchups, and most outdoor games), so cable ratings will be a bit lower as a result. * Looking at the ratings for the final round, they're up more than 100% over the current period (2007 averaged a 1.2 rating, while last year's final scored a 3.2 rating; these ratings fluctuate greatly based on the teams taking part).
The NHL is interesting, since the hard cap puts them in a position to be able to slowly ratchet down without putting as much pressure on teams. On top of that, hockey has always been more gate-driven than TV-revenue-driven, so as long as attendance figures stay high, they'll be OK.
Perhaps, but worth noting that when NHL ended their relationship with ESPN business suffered.
While NFL is much larger, w/ greater and more diverse revenues, NHL suffered all sorts of unintended consequences, like reduced exposure when ESPN deprioritized hockey highlight packages.