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''The NHL on Versus'' was a presentation of National Hockey League (NHL) games broadcast on Versus. Versus became the NHL's cable partner in the United States beginning in the 2005–06 season from previous partner ESPN, providing coverage of regular season games, playoff games, and select games from the Stanley Cup Finals. Before the beginning of the 2011–12 season, Comcast—the owners of Versus—acquired a majority stake in NBC Universal, the parent company of the NBC and the NHL's current American broadcast television partner. As a result of this merger and the impending relaunch of Versus as the NBC Sports Network in 2012, all NHL telecasts on Versus were re-branded under the ''NHL on NBC'' name beginning with the 2011–12 season. ==History== The NHL's television deal with Versus was made at the conclusion of the 2004–05 NHL lockout that caused the cancellation of an entire season. At the time, Versus offered a two-year, US$130 million contract (with a network option for a third year) that delivered guaranteed money for Commissioner Gary Bettman (ESPN, which previously held the rights and broadcast games on ''ESPN National Hockey Night'', wanted a revenue-sharing deal similar to NBC's). Versus was expected to use NHL coverage to show it was a legitimate suitor for Major League Baseball and National Football League packages that were to be negotiated later in 2005, but they did not land agreements with either league. In 2007, the NHL signed an agreement to extend the NHL on Versus to the 2010–2011 season. Versus paid $72.5 million for 2007–2008 and will pay inflationary increases over the next three years. In January 2011, Comcast officially acquired NBC Universal, and then in April of that year the league negotiated a new 10-year deal with the merged media company, worth nearly $2 billion. Comcast/NBC also announced that Versus would become NBC Sports Network, and both the cable channel and NBC would increase its number of games. Under this contract, NBC Sports Network usually airs at least two regular season games per week, while the main NBC broadcast network airs afternoon games on selected weekends. Coverage of the playoffs and the Finals is split between the two networks, with some first round games also being shown on another cable channel owned by NBC Universal. In April 2011, NBC Sports and Versus announced they had reached a ten-year extension to the television contract with the National Hockey League worth nearly 2 billion dollars over the life of the contract. The new contract takes advantage of the recent NBC-Comcast merger, which unified the two NHL broadcasters under the same ownership. As a consequence of its impending re-branding as NBC Sports Network all NHL coverage on Versus was re-branded as ''NHL on NBC'' beginning at the start of the 2011-12 season. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「NHL on Versus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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