Chicago Blackhawks: NBC exclusive starting this season
The Chicago Blackhawks will always get the eye of national media but there is a new wrinkle in the local coverage for the 2019-20 season.
The Chicago Blackhawks have become one of the powerhouses when it comes to eyeballs attracted to the team in the last decade or so. Winning three Stanley Cups and having marketable players have had a lot to do with that. Even coming off of their second straight absence from the postseason, they will be a major part of NBC’s national coverage.
The Chicago Blackhawks announced all of their radio and television broadcast information on Tuesday morning. 12 of their games are going to be nationally televised exclusively on NBCSN. Those 12 times are a league-high, and there are two additional appearances on NBCSN that will also be broadcasted locally for a total of 14 times on the national broadcast.
The new wrinkle this year, is that the other 70 Blackhawks regular-season games will be found on NBC Sports Chicago. There will be no more games on WGN. They still will be a part of the fun though as WGN Radio AM-720 will have the radio broadcast with John Wiedeman doing play by play and Troy Murray doing the color commentating. Pat Foley, Ed Olczyk, and Steve Konroyd will provide the play by play and analysis for the NBC Sports Chicago broadcasts. The good news is now that they are NBC exclusive, all games will be available on the NBC Sports MyTeams app.
The local guys will get the broadcast of the first game of the season as the Blackhawks will be in Prague, Czech Republic to play the Philadelphia Flyers to get the season going on October 4th. It is good to see the NHL give the local guys who love the Blackhawks to call that game and it will mean a lot to hear their guys call a game on such a big stage.
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The Blackhawks still having this many appearances on national television shows that the league still needs them as a marketing tool and it shows how healthy the franchise is despite some on-ice struggles the past two seasons. They look to be a promising team this year and should be right there for a chance to be a playoff contender.