NHL Draft Mixes Music and Business in Nashville

On the business side, separate shows are produced by ESPN, Sportsnet, TVA

Less than a week after the Country Music Association’s annual CMA Fest extravaganza took over Nashville’s NFL stadium, the NHL Draft moved into the Predators’ Bridgestone Arena June 28-29 (ESPN, SportsNet, TVA). Between the two events, it was as though the music never stopped.

Where CMA Fest hosted shows by Keith Urban, Vince Gill, Luke Combs, Reba McEntire, Little Big Town, and others, the NHL Draft held its own with performances by Brothers Osborne, Jo Dee Messina, Kip Moore, Maddie & Tae, Mitchell Tenpenny, and more at the NHL Awards and other pre-Draft events earlier in the week. The NHL Awards was hosted by singer Dierks Bentley (his son Knox, a budding hockey player, served as special correspondent). The almost seamless transition between the CMA event and the NHL’s underscored sports’ own transformation into high-concept entertainment complete with red carpet.

A packed Bridgestone Arena hosted music performances Monday at NHL Awards show.

“When I started here about 13 years ago, the Draft had already transitioned into an entertainment space, meaning into the arena environment,” says NHL EVP, Broadcasting, Ivan Gottesfeld. “More than 30 years ago, drafts were held in ballrooms and spaces like that and were conducted strictly as business meetings. Since then, it has become an entertainment event for many touchpoints, such as league sponsorship, and the markets that we go to in an effort to grow the game.”

He cites NHL Chief Content Officer Steve Mayer on the creative side and EVP, NHL Events, Dean Matsuzaki on the operations side for execution of this year’s Draft. In particular, he notes the synergy in holding it in Nashville, leveraging the city’s downtown entertainment infrastructure.

“The energy, the excitement, the music, the added entertainment value right outside the arena and incorporated into the Draft itself, which people will see at home, is just remarkable,” Gottesfeld says.

Counting the Preds’ Stanley Cup shot in 2017, this is the fourth time Nashville has hosted an NHL tentpole event, following the Draft in 2003 and the NHL All-Star weekend in 2016.

A packed Bridgestone Arena hosted music performances Monday at NHL Awards show.

Broadcast sports’ strategic goal has always been to give viewers a sense of being in the stands at the game. NHL SVP, Arena and Event Operations, Dan O’Neill notes that the Draft aspires to a similar goal.

“At the end of the day,” he says, “it’s about key components from a traditional perspective: camera coverage and access. How close can you bring people to that space? Over the years, we’ve added to the number of cameras, such as cue-ball cameras on tables. The challenge that we have with this event is that we have three unilateral productions being done: the ESPN production, which is the U.S. broadcast; Sportsnet, which is the Canadian English National; and TVA, which is the French-Canadian national broadcast.

“The level of cooperation and collaboration for this event is just like it is for our game coverage with multiple rightsholders onsite,” he continues. “But, when you look at what this event is and the pacing of it, the cadence, and the access that the three parties need, that’s where things get tricky. Three separate productions need to get their commercial breaks in when they need to; we have to work collectively to figure out the cadence to do that. We also have NHL Network doing pre and post shows for multiple hours, with our NHL Studios production team embedded with prospects.”

Connor Bedard is the top pick, by the Chicago Blackhawks, in the 2023 NHL Draft at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena.

Considerable attention is given to developing narrative arcs for broadcast and to sharing them with the live production, following prospects as they’re selected, O’Neill says: “Their experience getting selected from the stands, working their way to meet the commissioner, and the commissioner greeting them and welcoming them to the NHL. All that content gets migrated in real time to the television broadcast and all our other platforms.”

Gottesfeld notes the integration of the live and broadcast event with the Bridgestone’s own video infrastructure. “We have the stage, we have screens inside, and a 10-camera shoot outside. They’re shooting, and we’re doing productions and sharing content both in and out, similar to what we did for the awards show. We’re at upwards of 60 cameras, and that does not include the social-media component and the digital side and the behind-the-scenes content that each of our clubs’ regional networks gets to share.

“We are utilizing the center-hung video screen and all the ribbons and other existing systems at Bridgestone Arena,” he continues, “as well as the marquees, the city, and the street. The city even changed out some of the streetlights, just to put a personal touch to it. In the building, we’ve had five ribbons’ worth of content added into our set design. We have two main screens as part of our set design as the focus of the show. We have brought in a new PA system with our partners at Claire Audio. From a wireless perspective, upwards of about 350 frequencies have been coordinated for the event.

“We’re a show,” he continues, “but we’re also a business meeting. It’s incredible.”