Will the NBC/NHL partnership end with this season?

Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images Back in March, the NHL announced that they had reached an agreement to bring their league back to ESPN starting next season in 2021-22. ESPN will pay $420 million annually for the seven year package to get rights to all sorts of NHL events and games, spread across traditional television and the ever-expanding streaming platforms.

This sent a shock wave across the sport and has left the future of hockey on NBC up in the air. The NHL is also looking to negotiate a “B” package of TV rights, and won’t be exclusive on ESPN the way they have been exclusive to NBC in the past. This catches the NHL up to basically every other league with multiple broadcast…