OLN has taken its first major step toward becoming a general-interest sports network competing directly with ESPN.
   Yesterday the former Outdoor Life Network reached a deal with the National Hockey League after former carrier ESPN declined to match OLN’s offer. 
   OLN will pay $135 million to televise hockey games for the next two seasons, $65 million this year and $70 million next. The Comcast-owned network has an option for up to four years after that, the first of which would start at $72.5 million.
   ESPN ended a 21-year relationship with the struggling league. It initially dropped its option to continue broadcasting the NHL in May after the league canceled last season because of the lockout.
   But the Disney-owned network still had the right to match any other network’s contract offer, and it looked like it might do so simply to keep the league away from OLN. ESPN officials said the new deal simply wasn’t worth the high price. NBC has a rights deal with the NHL through which it will pay nothing, splitting revenue from the ads, and ESPN reportedly wanted a similar deal. 
   “Given the prolonged work stoppage and the league’s ratings history, no financial model even remotely supports the contract terms offered,” George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports, said in a statement last night.
   The NHL limped to a 0.2 household average in its last season on ESPN2, 2003-‘04. That’s double OLN’s primetime average during the second quarter. 
   OLN will carry regular-season NHL games as well as the first two games of the Stanley Cup finals before they move to NBC.
   But as big as the deal is for OLN, the cable network needs a lot more than hockey to truly threaten ESPN. Additional deals with the NFL, Major League Baseball and/or NASCAR could launch OLN to the big time. The network already is reportedly chasing football and NASCAR.
   “The NHL is one piece of the puzzle,” says Lee Berke, president of LHB Sports, a TV consulting firm in Scarsdale, N.Y. “As long as it is not a final move, it is a great step forward. It will lead to the establishment of OLN as a direct competitor to ESPN.”
   Comcast has made clear its desire for a major sports network for some time. It tried to acquire Disney last year largely to get ESPN. But so far at least it has denied an intent to challenge ESPN directly. As for ESPN, it sees the OLN hockey deal as the first move to challenge its dominance in sports, and is saying so publicly.
   The question remains whether NHL broadcasts will make money for OLN. If Comcast can gain additional OLN distribution through televising hockey, the increase in fee revenue and ad sales could make the deal profitable, says Berke. OLN currently reaches 64 million households, compared with 90 million for ESPN.
   But even if the NHL doesn’t make money for Comcast, it still could serve as an important loss leader. 
   “It’s a good platform for them to sell themselves to other properties,” Berke says.