They’d have to defer network programming in order to air games that have far less viewership numbers. They can do it on alternate feeds, but they’ve done that before and the numbers just don’t seem to be there to make the finances work. It's the same problem the RSNs ran into with this stuff. The “SportsSouth” market (or whatever they were calling it at any given time) was propped up for a long time by the Braves broadcasts, which actually made money. The second you unplugged that and the Canes and Hornets were on their own, the whole thing tanked. Same was true in other stable MLB markets with other pro sports, like St Louis. I understand that the NBA is barely even a break even for the RSNs, and only for some teams, and the teams make most of their broadcast revenue from their national deals … which are a LOT bigger than the NHL’s.
The problem with people like us discussing these things is that the actual numbers are some sort of bloody state secret. We only know ranges and reports about the RSN broadcasts of NHL games vary wildly. From the 10,000 to 600,00 so far as I can find in print. I can guarantee the Canes don’t fit into the upper quadrant of that range, because we CAN see some of ESPN’s ratings numbers and the only ones drawing in the 100s of thousands are the big Northeast markets. So, when does Capital Broadcasting make money on these things? At 50,000? 40,000? I have no idea, but that’s about what I recall the Canes getting for in market ESPN games, and I suspect that’s not nearly enough.
