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3DNYX04 MILAN, ITALY – FEBRUARY 12: Gary Bettman during a press conference on day six of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic games at Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena on February 12, 2026 in Milan, Italy.
The NHL’s return to “best on best” Olympic competition was close to a best-case scenario for the league, but commissioner Gary Bettman still sees room for improvement.
Appearing at the Sports Business Journal National Sports Forum Tuesday, Bettman reportedly advocated for a later start time for the next Olympic men’s hockey final, which takes place from Nice, France, in four years — the same time zone as Milan, Italy, where this year’s Olympic competition took place.
Last Sunday’s United States-Canada men’s hockey gold medal game began at 8 AM ET — 2 PM local time — the earliest for the Olympic men’s 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.
While the game still attracted an outsized audience of 18.6 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, that was well short of the nearly 28 million who watched in 2010 (which would surely have been well north of 30 million, perhaps even approaching 40, under current methodology). Bettman said this year’s numbers were “terrific,” but added that he has been told “by reliable sources” that the audience “could’ve been twice as high.”
Plenty of this year’s Olympic events, including hockey games, took place in the midday hours. But with the men’s hockey game the final event of the Games, it had to take place early enough to allow players to attend the Closing Ceremony.
“There 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,” Bettman said, as recounted by Alex Silverman of Sports Business Journal. He also addressed the NHL’s lack of highlight rights during the Games, saying that “it isn’t good if the NHL disappears for two and a half weeks.”
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.
Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter) or Bluesky.
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The whole Saturday thing really isn’t going to work like people keep thinking it will. There’s a lot of other events that impact the scheduling and it won’t be as easy to schedule a Saturday gold medal game. I say leave it where it is as it’s not like the ratings were low. People just had to get up earlier plus you want to leave it on Sunday for years, where the Olympics is in the better timeslot like it will be in 2034. You don’t want that game on a Saturday over a Sunday afternoon that year. Also, audiences tend to be bigger on Sundays because less people are working. People work on Saturdays and they’re home on Sundays, so keep that game on Sundays. Like I said leave the game where it is and just deal with lowered years and higher years, when the game can air in the afternoons locally.
I had no problem with 8AM start. In fact, I enjoyed Sunday AM start watching with family while eating bagel and drinking latte. After all we are not talking about a 2AM start like the Australian Open. Heavy publicity made virtually everyone aware of the time. 90% of viewers are off work and likely at home at that time slot. On the positive side, what else is on in that time slot to offer competition.
I don’t know if Saturday evening will works in Europe for a hockey finals as it is gameday time for football in the Continent (not that one played with hands on old England colonies).
And maybe it is a problem for American people: I haven’t seen issue on Canada about this. (Edit: don’t be inflammatory for no reason.)
If becomes also a un-negotiable condition to have NHL players, he has leverage…
Pay attention that it was always at that time in the history: the problem has been this year because USA never reached finals in Europe with NHL players in 2006 and 2014.
I don’t know if Saturday evening will works in Europe for a hockey finals as it is gameday time for football in the Continent (not that one played with hands on old England colonies).
If becomes also a un-negotiable condition to have NHL players, he has leverage…
Pay attention that it was always at that time in the history: the problem has been this year because USA never reached finals in Europe with NHL players in 2006 and 2014.
The real scandal in NBC that forced morning finals on SWIMMING in BEIJING and TOKYO and forced later hours in Rio for your prime time instead of classics late afternoon/early evening.
However no change for LA 28 as it is 6pm local time.
Saturday would probably work fine for the hockey final. It’s the logistics of the rest of the tournament – which remember is NOT controlled by the NHL, it’s an IIHF tournament – that need to be dealt with. Not to mention that there is the women’s tournament in the same arenas they need to work around.
The NHL has already committed to the 2030 Olympics, so Bettman doesn’t really have a ton of leverage here. This will happen if NBC wants it to happen. Less so based on what Bettman things. And no, the swim finals time change isn’t a scandal. It’s everyone playing to their biggest business interests. Which is why it’s probably not going to be that way in 2032 despite the time zone
A reminder for everyone.. the NHL does not run the Olympic hockey tournament. That is done by the IIHF. So Bettman may or may not have that much standing here to ask for a change even though the NHL is offering themselves up for the Olympics.
Later on Sunday isn’t an option because of the closing ceremony. If they want it on Saturday (where it could be Saturday afternoon in the US and Canada), that might be possible, but then there’s a lot of logistical hurdles to work around in order to make that happen.
Hockey is 1 of many sports at the Winter Olympics. So they need to work within the framework of the rest of the Olympics. Which is far easier said than done
While I agree hockey is one of many sports in the Olympics, I believe the NHL has more leverage to get a better schedule. The Olympics know the hockey tournament is better with NHL players. There is no comparison (no one remembers the last Olympic hockey tournament in 2022). If Bettman sees the IOC not working a better schedule for the Gold Medal game, he may just say no more NHL players. I can see a negotiation happening. I do think moving to the Saturday is the best option. With the Sunday closing ceremonies, you don’t have much scheduling options (especially when overseas in different time zones).
I don’t think they have that much leverage. They’ve already committed their players to play in 2030 and I doubt they would pull that back. Remember that the Olympic hockey tournament isn’t run by the NHL. It’s run by the IIHF. They are in charge and they obviously have 2 hockey tournaments to manage. So it’s really not Bettman’s decision to make. He’s better off making the plea to NBC, who does have leverage. But they’re no longer an NHL media partner.
I could see a scenario where the men’s final is Saturday and then the women’s final is the last event on Sunday. That would certainly be an intriguing option, although they’d have to shift a lot of things around with both tournaments. And all of that may be less than ideal for the NHL if it affects when they pause the season to get all the players to France.
Among the issues is whether Saturday evening North America time is better for 2030 Olympics generally and 2030 Olympics men’s hockey specifically
International competition is littered with backfires when events are moved for the benefit of country A. World Cup 2023 is an example – USWNT failed to win its group, leaving other teams to play a knockout that had been timed to optimize US viewing
Single-elimination hockey is quite random. Canada and US both needed to survive OT just to make the medal round. It is easy to imagine a 2030 final like Russia-Finland; outcomes such as that collectively are probably more likely than US-Canada
I agree that the probable outcome here will be a Saturday night (afternoon on the East Coast) final, which I think has been done for men’s basketball in the Summer Olympics in the past as well.
That may clash with other events that day. Easier said than done. Maybe then the women’s final goes Sunday morning in that slot, but there are still a lot of logistics to work out to make that happen since both tournaments are going on at the same time and share arenas with each other
I do think it may work out fine if Milan’s scheduling was any indication though. The women’s group stage was almost entirely complete before the men’s tournament began, and the women’s final was on Thursday night (although that conflict with the women’s figure skating final might no longer be acceptable to NBC in 2030 so it may need to change day/timeslot). On the last Saturday night this year, I don’t recall there being anything else going on that NBC otherwise would have had a huge problem with not airing live in favor of the men’s final. If the scheduling for figure skating, speedskating, and freestyle skiing/snowboarding remain similar in 2030, the IIHF can probably do a Saturday night final so long as it is okay with having both the bronze (early) and gold medal (primetime) games on the same day like they did for the women.
Olympics is a giant exercise in bureaucracy with decisions often made at the speed of a glacier. But, even with bumbling, four years is plenty of time to consult with all stakeholders and modify logistics (if stakeholders agree it is mutually beneficial)
Have a south American country host winter olympics. Then it will be durning North American Summer no impact to NHL.
Complain. Complain. Complain. That’s life in sports now. Nobody is happy. The IIHF runs the show here, which Bettman hates. I loved the starting time. Keep the game where it’s at. But complaining is a way of life now.
Why can’t we celebrate what a great moment this was.
As I said in another post, I think the best solution may be to have the US mens team play the gold medal game Saturday, and the women play Sunday on before the closing ceremony. The Sunday game does have limits due to the closing ceremony. Having the game Saturday does give flexibility with the time schedule. And, if the NHL continues to send players, it gives them an extra day to get back (when the Olympics are overseas). I know there are a lot of scheduling between the mens and womens games. There are 2 arenas for hockey. i think this would be the best solution.
Sounds nice in theory, but there are all the logistics of the men’s tournament with the women’s tournament. And if you’re starting the men’s tournament earlier, that would affect when the NHL puts a pause on the season in order to get the players to France. It could be worked out, but still far easier said than done
I believe the best case scenario, for Bettman and Americans to get the better timeslot in U.S. viewing of the Men’s Hockey Gold Medal game, is to have the game begin at 8PM local time in Nice, France on the Saturday before Closing Ceremony Sunday which is 2PM Eastern in the U.S. Plenty of the U.S. hockey games in these games were shown around those timeslots which was night time in Milan-Cortina including the Women’s Gold Medal game which had its first puck drop at 7:10 local time in Milan-Cortana, 1:10 Eastern in the U.S.
I understand closing ceremonies doesn’t have strong juice from U.S. viewers which is where I can see why they could careless about the Gold Medal game creating a conflict with closing ceremony. However, I’m sure IOC and the host committee of Nice, France would not want that to be the case whatsoever. I really really hope that won’t be of consideration from Salt Lake’s committee for the 2034 games (Have the Gold Medal game puck dropped at or around 4PM Eastern if the committee wants the game to happen on a Sunday). So the best way to go about it is to have the Gold Medal 8PM local time in Nice, France which is 2PM Eastern here in the U.S. It worked in Paris for the Men’s Basketball Gold Medal game vs. France. Probably should copycat that.
I have no issues with Bettman bringing this to the public and perhaps using his position and influence in Hockey on this matter. Sometimes you have to be on record just to repeat or revert back to the quote in case someone asks about it to him. We’ll see if he continues his advocacy, but I believe it’s more realistic to have it on a Saturday than Sunday.
Going to be the same start time like it was this year if US and Canada meet again in France. Wish folks stop complaining….it is what it is
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© 2026 Jon Lewis, Sports Media Watch
© 2026 Jon Lewis, Sports Media Watch
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