The Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers are in trials for a licensed subscription pay-per-view service called Breakaway, which offers special game telecasts to subscribers.
However, Vancouver is the only team with any measurable success at present. The Canucks attracted 7,000 subscribers to its PPV telecast of the game at home to Florida on October 16, 2,000 of which took a ten-game package for ($59.95/B). A single game costs $9.95 (B).
Although the club’s vice president Chris Hebb expects that level of growth combined with the club's ownership of its own production facilities could lead to break even, the project remains an experiment. He insisted there is no danger of PPV replacing broadcast and cable.
The Canucks are locked into a five-year regional deal with Sportsnet and the National Hockey League (NHL) controls the national rights.
Meanwhile, Calgary is yet to air a PPV telecast as its regional rights are still owned by brewer Molson, although Edmonton plans to produce three telecasts later this season.
