SBJ Unpacks: Gary Bettman wants to make hockey ‘even more impactful’ at Olympics

Tonight in Unpacks: NHL players returned to the Winter Games following a 12-year hiatus, and while NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is pleased with hockey’s performance at Milan Cortina, he’s talking with stakeholders to find ways to better share highlights and schedule big games for 2030’s games in France, reports Alex Silverman from SBJ’s National Sports Forum in St. Louis.

Also tonight:

• NBC lands second-best Olympic hockey audience with USA-Canada thriller
• Olympic movement shifts focus to L.A.
• USTA announces Craig Tiley as new CEO
• Op-ed: Key uses for sports diplomacy

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Alex Silverman reports from St. Louis with thoughts and observations on his first SBJ National Sports Forum, such as CAA’s Howie Nuchow being “bullish” on college football and how teams are looking to capitalize on international events such as the Winter Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and the World Baseball Classic.

ST. LOUIS — Like every hockey fan, Gary Bettman is quick to acknowledge that the 2026 men’s Olympic hockey tournament, which culminated in the first U.S. gold medal since 1980, “was an amazing hockey experience.” Even so, the NHL commissioner is already thinking about how the league can work with the IOC, IIHF and Olympic broadcaster NBC to make the competition even more impactful for both his league and the sport as a whole.

“There are things we can do based on this experience and our relationship with the IIHF and the IOC that can make it an even more impactful event for hockey,” Bettman said moments before taking the stage Tuesday afternoon at SBJ’s National Sports Forum in St. Louis. “And that’s something we’ll be talking about as we focus on the next one four years from now in France.”

In particular, the league is eyeing increased access to Olympic highlights and more ideal scheduling for big games when the league next sends its players to the Winter Games in 2030.

Due to IOC restrictions aimed at protecting its high-paying broadcast partners (such as NBC in the U.S.), the NHL and its clubs are unable to use any highlights, whether it’s on their social media platforms or in other promotional material. It was a frustration for the league before its 12-year hiatus from sending players to the Games, but the lack of highlight rights has become even more glaring given the evolution of real-time social media content.

“If you go back to ’98, when we first [sent players to the Olympics] ... there weren’t the social media platforms, all of which we feed daily during the regular season,” Bettman said later during his onstage session. “But when we go to the Olympics, there are limitations on what we can do. And as good as it is for hockey, it isn’t good if the NHL disappears for two and a half weeks, and we’ve got to strike a balance.”

As for start times, Bettman is convinced the gold medal game between the U.S. and Canada would have posted a much higher viewership number had the puck drop been at a more ideal time than 8am ET. Preliminary numbers have the game drawing 18.6M viewers, which is the second-best Olympic hockey rating ever for NBC. Still, it paled in comparison to the 2010 gold medal game in Vancouver, which drew 27.6M viewers with a 3:15pm ET start time.

“While we did a terrific rating, I’ve been told by reliable sources in the broadcasting business that the rating could’ve been twice as high,” Bettman said.

The commissioner said he had a candid and productive conversation with first-year IOC President Kirsty Coventry in Milan that he is hopeful will lead to reform in future Games.

“I’m hoping that as we and the Players’ Association work together and demonstrate that this is good for hockey for us to be promoting the Olympics, hopefully the chains with which we are tied will loosen,” Bettman said.

NBC drew its second-best Olympic hockey audience on record with Team USA’s win over Canada in OT on Sunday morning (8:15-11am ET), drawing 18.6 million viewers. That’s behind only the 27.6 million for Canada’s OT win over the U.S. in 2010 that was in a more favorable time zone (3:15pm start). Sunday morning’s USA-Canada game peaked at 26 million in overtime. The 2026 men’s hockey gold-medal game is the most-watched sporting event on record in the U.S. with a pre-9am ET start time. The audience includes 3.7 million viewers on Peacock, which is NBC’s best non-NFL streaming audience yet.

Later Sunday, another 2.1 million viewers watched the replay of USA-Canada on USA Network.

The live audience of 18.6 million is a little below what NBC drew in 2024 for the gold-medal game in men’s basketball between the U.S. and France (19.5 million). It’s also right on par with what YouTube drew in the U.S. for the Chargers-Chiefs game from Brazil in Week 1 this past NFL season.

Looking back at the last U.S. gold medal in men’s hockey in 1980, ABC drew 32.8 million for the final game between the U.S. and Finland. The “Miracle on Ice” medal-round game against the Soviet Union on ABC drew 34.2 million.

Los Angeles, you’re up.

With the Milan Cortina Olympics closing and the Paralympics just weeks away, everyone from sports organizations to sponsors can now put full focus on what will be the biggest Olympics in history.

The allure of a domestic Games has already expedited timelines and prompted stakeholders to work more in parallel between a Winter and Summer Games than before. Now they shift their attention to maximizing the commercial, marketing and sports growth potential of an Olympics with a record number of athletes (more than 11,000) and sports (36), as well as a Paralympics that could change the landscape of adaptive sport in the United States.

“Everybody’s talking generally about L.A., also within the context of ‘Paris, Milan, L.A.’ and keeping that drumbeat going,” said Katie Bynum Aznavorian, chief strategy and growth officer at the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee. “That’s how we feel it, because everybody’s excited that there’s something to build on across those three Games, with the expectation that L.A. carries very big expectations for everyone.”

Those expectations have been high since the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Los Angeles in 2017. Momentum has only built since the Paris Games in 2024 reignited interest in the Olympic movement, with record viewership, social media interest and sponsor investment.

Since then, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Properties — the joint venture between LA28 and the USOPC — signed 15 new sponsors last year and crossed $2 billion in deals. Organizers announced more than 1.5 million fans signed up in the first 24 hours that ticket registration opened last month.

After a move from Westwood to downtown Los Angeles, the organization has grown to more than 600 strong as it prepares for operational delivery of the Games. Its newest sponsor, Korn Ferry, will help, as the organization will grow to around 4,000 by the time the Games open.

The optimism for those Games has remained despite questions about Chairman Casey Wasserman since flirtatious emails from 2003 with Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence for recruiting and trafficking teenage girls Jeffrey Epstein abused, were released late last month.

The LA28 board of directors retained O’Melveny & Myers to conduct a review and voted to keep Wasserman in the role. He is separately selling his talent agency amid the fallout. He remained in his LA28 role as of last week.

“I have more confidence today in L.A. 2028’s operational capabilities, its leadership, the quality of what it’s doing and how well they’ve executed than I have at any point in time since I began working with LA28 at its inception in 2015,” said USOPC Chairman Gene Sykes.

Planning intensifies

With the movement turning full focus on Los Angeles, already accelerated planning will intensify.

NBC, which has had a joint venture with LA28 since 2018 to sell sponsorship and media packages, will refine production planning coming out of the Milan Cortina Games. Though to a lesser degree than the regional spread of those Games, the venue plan for Los Angeles will see clusters far enough apart to prompt NBC to decide which events it can produce remotely versus on-site.

“We have formed a really close relationship with almost each part of the organizing committee,” said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. “We have a pretty decent sense of what we want our footprint to look like. We’ll take some learnings out of here. … But we’re further along than we would be and we should be because it’s in our backyard.”

LA28 continues to sign sponsors, working toward its $2.5 billion goal that organizers now hope to exceed. While its recent signings have included several at its highest tier — including Honda, Google, Starbucks and Intuit — it still has open categories in financial services, energy and logistics.

“You always see a strong acceleration of signing partners around this time, but L.A. has recently blown it out of the water, and it’s sort of like, yes, the momentum of the more they sign, the more people want to be in there,” said Erin Greene, vice president of client consulting at GMR Marketing. “It’s a new era for the Olympics, and there’s a huge excitement and there’s huge business opportunity, which is ultimately the most important thing for the brands.”

Sponsors are securing locations and planning how to activate. TCL, the Chinese technology company that signed on as the newest TOP sponsor last year, started its LA28 planning last summer, said Stefan Streit, CMO at TCL Europe.

In the final two years, brands that aren’t already sponsoring could look at ways to get proximity to the Games, including deals with national governing bodies and athletes. That approach means getting visibility without using Olympic IP.

This year stands to be a pivotal one for LA28, which will also announce plans for its mascots and the torch relay running through all 50 states. Deadlines for ticketing and accommodations for sponsors and other stakeholders will start solidifying decisions on where they want to be during the Games.

“L.A. timelines are advanced,” said Angelique Tetrault, GMR’s senior vice president of global experience solutions. “We’re already in strategic planning with several of our clients around L.A., and I think the minute Milan wraps, it’s going to be full steam ahead on L.A.”

The USTA announced Tuesday it is hiring Tennis Australia CEO Craig Tiley as its next CEO. Elevate Talent handled the search -- which began last summer after Tiley’s predecessor, Lew Sherr, departed to become the Mets’ president of business operations -- alongside a USTA search committee led by interim CEOs Andrea Hirsch (the USTA’s COO & chief legal officer) and Brian Vahaly (board chair).

In an interview with SBJ, Tiley confirmed that he and the USTA were deep in negotiations in December, but said they decided to table finalizing the deal until after the Australian Open. Tiley’s contract with Tennis Australia also contains a required notice period before leaving the organization, which Tiley said was negotiated by him agreeing to assist Tennis Australia in its search for a new CEO and outline a five-year strategy for the organization to its board. Tennis Australia has retained Egon Zehnder to manage its CEO search and Tiley said they are “well down the path of” placing someone.

Because of those moving parts, Tiley’s start date with the USTA is still to be determined. The press release announcing his appointment says he will “formally assume his responsibilities as USTA CEO in the coming months.” Tiley said he expects that will be “around the middle of the year” and before the 2026 U.S. Open; he will be based in Orlando, where the USTA has its national campus.

“I’ve got a few key deadlines,” Tiley said. “I’ve got kids starting school the 10th of August in Orlando, so the family has to be there by July. Our house [in Australia] goes on the market next week. All that stuff will happen pretty quickly.”

Tiley, a native South African, started with Tennis Australia in 2005 as director of tennis, became the Australian Open’s tournament director the following year, and added CEO duties in 2013. Before that, he was the Univ. of Illinois’ head men’s tennis coach, winning an NCAA championship in 2003.

Known as an innovative and at-times disruptive leader during his more than two decades with Tennis Australia, Tiley’s successful track record leading a national governing body tasked with developing tennis from the grassroots level and organizing a highly attended/commercialized Grand Slam was central to his candidacy to lead the USTA. The USTA has set a goal of tennis participation in the U.S. reaching 35 million players by 2035 (it recently reported that there were 27.3 million in 2025, up 1.6 million from 2024). The U.S. Open has grown exponentially since emerging from COVID-19 restrictions in 2020; in 2025, the event set another attendance record (1.1 million), and in 2024 accounted for 90% of the USTA’s total revenue ($560M). The USTA is also partway through an $800M upgrade of the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, which will be completed next year.

Overseeing those efforts, among others, is a big job. But Tiley said the “whole package” intrigued him and his family, which has roots in the U.S.

“There’s a lot of great things that have been done at the USTA from your three main channels -- getting people to play the game, getting people to perform well in the game and providing everyone platforms to do it on,” Tiley said. “There’s an opportunity around those to continue to grow there and continue to have success in that. I was excited about the scale of that opportunity.”

When Tiley arrives, it will be to a new-look USTA, with Sherr gone and Chief Executive of Professional Tennis/U.S. Open Tournament Director Stacey Allaster transitioning to an advisory role this April. (Eric Butorac, the USTA’s former U.S. Open senior director/player relations & business development, was promoted to succeed Allaster as U.S. Open tournament director in November.)

Many in the industry are anxious to see how Tiley will put his fingerprints on the organization, but he preached patience, saying he will undertake a listening tour before considering major changes. “As I said, there’s a lot of great things going on [at the USTA],” Tiley said. “There have been reports I’m going to come in and ruffle the whole thing and change everything. Even though I am a change agent, I’m not for just the sake of change.”

Global tennis is also in a period of potential flux -- primarily, in the USTA’s case, on the legal front, where it along with the ATP, WTA and organizers of Wimbledon and the French Open are facing an antitrust lawsuit levied by the Professional Tennis Players Association and player plaintiffs. Tennis Australia recently settled with the PTPA to exit the suit, so it is noteworthy that Tiley will now move to the head of an organization still embroiled in litigation.

“Each organization has made their own choice as it relates to the upcoming lawsuits, and Tennis Australia’s was straightforward,” he said, calling the decision board-driven and based on a desire to exit the suit before it advanced further (i.e., to a damages claim). “As you represent the organization you work for, you do what’s the best interest of that organization at that time. That could be different when you go into another organization.”

Tiley will address USTA staff for the first time on an organization-wide town hall Tuesday afternoon, starting at 3pm ET.

YouTube is negotiating with the NFL to acquire rights to the four games the league kept as part of its ESPN equity deal, but a number of parties remain interested in the package, sources tell SBJ. It’s unknown what that mix of games would be. Sources added that there have been “lots of inbound” to the NFL on the four-game package, which could come with a short-term shelf life as the league figures out its broader, long-term media strategy.

Both YouTube and the NFL declined to comment.

YouTube aired its first NFL game last year with the Week 1 Chargers-Chiefs game from Brazil, and the matchup drew 18.5 million viewers in the U.S., with another 1.1 million or so from abroad. NFL Network will likely remain the home for the bulk of the league’s international games, but with nine such contests in 2026, that means opportunity beyond the cable network. The Cowboys’ game in Brazil this year is slated for a 4:25pm ET window, meaning CBS or Fox are the likely candidates. But the NFL also has the Australia game to sell. Sources also tell SBJ that many other NFL media partners haven’t yet discussed this package of four games with the league.

Beyond an international element, other games that could go to YouTube could be for exclusive windows elsewhere on the calendar, such as later in the season when streamers such as Peacock or ESPN+ have picked up games in the past. Other sources have told SBJ that the NFL could be interested in expanding its Black Friday slate, which has been a sole Prime Video game thus far.

When the Chicago Sky’s practice facility opens in late spring (Chicago’s idea of spring, to be clear), it’ll measure roughly 80,000 square feet, a significant increase over the original plan’s 52,000, making it the largest in the WNBA for at least a year until the Indiana Fever’s opens in 2027.

The project’s ballooned scope extended the timeline from the original target, December, into this year but will be well worth it to the Sky’s ownership.

“This now, especially for the WNBA, is table stakes,” said Nadia Rawlinson, co-owner and operating chairman of the Sky. “What once was sufficient has now become ho-hum, so let’s figure out how we can stay ahead of the curve for the benefit of players. That was the predicate for expanding these conversations; what else can we add, how do we make this even better than what we initially imagined?”

The project cost has grown to $60 million (the original price was closer to $40 million). Much of that is being paid by the village of Bedford Park as part of a deal that saw the Sky sign a 30-year ground lease to exclusively use the facility. The village plans to build more community athletic facilities around the Sky’s basketball training hub.

That planning was underway when Bedford Park approached the Sky with the training facility prospect, which led to the team’s later desire to further fine tune the design. Some of the changes were simple, like putting the practice courts side-by-side instead of end-to-end.

“We joined a project already in process, and as we had more time to think about what we really needed, we realized we needed to substantially rethink and redesign it,” said Michael Alter, the Sky’s majority owner.

The facility includes private secured parking, two full-sized courts, a weight room, performance and recovery rooms (including hot and cold tubs), a sauna and an infrared room. It also includes a doctor’s office; wellness, massage, and meditation rooms; and a mother’s room and family room. There is a players’ lounge, a kitchen with a full-time chef, a content creation studio and glam stations amid a spa-like setting in the team’s locker room.

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“As a league, we want to be on the forefront of supporting everything that is needed for women to be excellent at their craft,” Rawlinson said.

Alpa (hired by the village) designed the shell of the practice facility, while Shive Hattery (hired by the team) designed everything within.

The Bedford Park location, near Midway Airport and about 15 minutes from Sky’s home court at Wintrust Arena, works well for the team. And the village provides easy access to the South and West Sides of Chicago, where the team focuses its Chicago Sky Foundation work.

Bedford Park contributing to the project financially, a rarity for a pro women’s sports team, and presenting the Sky with an opportunity already in motion helped the team shave 10 to 12 months off the project timeline.

“They’ve been a fantastic partner, for sure,” he said. “They’ve rolled out the red carpet, so to speak, to make it happen.”

In addition to Chicago, the Fire and Thorns’ shared training facility also opens this year in Portland, joining Las Vegas, Seattle, Phoenix, and Golden State with women-focused training sites. Additional ones are under construction in Brooklyn, Indianapolis, and L.A., though Dallas’ city-funded effort for the Wings appears stalled, at least temporarily.

Sports diplomacy is a rapidly evolving umbrella concept, with a historical precedent in the United States and across the world. With the lead-up to the “American Decade of Sport,” in which the U.S. will host a wide variety of international events, there is now a critical opportunity to employ a wide range of sports diplomacy strategies to advance universal human values of understanding, cooperation, and perhaps, reconciliation. Look to the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 as an example: At the end of the Cold War era, the U.S. positioned itself to be the showcase of democracy and the supreme benefactors of capitalism. At the same time, the ’84 Olympic Games proved the modern significance of sport, which included a widely acclaimed and successful Olympic Art Festival and an investment in a youth educational program designed to teach the values of respect, sportsmanship, perseverance, and wellness.

In developing programming for students, clients, and organizations, I see sports diplomacy as utilizing the soft power of sports in society to create and develop economic, social and cultural opportunities. A big mission in, frankly, a short statement. Sports “diplomacy” should employ a variety of tactics, skills and cooperative strategies to achieve common goals, regardless of region, nationality, religion or locale: advancing human cooperation, connections and growth.

With the decline of human rights in some regions of the world, violence against minority groups, growing gender and race inequities and a continued lean toward fascism and authoritarianism in both large and small countries, it is critical that leaders, at the national and local levels, build partnerships with like-minded organizations that can assist in building community, repair the effects of violence and hate and reconcile differences. Despite a history of authoritarian governments leveraging sport to enforce ideology, sports can build healthy nationalistic attitudes that bring communities together. Additionally, many religious ideological governments, such as Iran, enforce a hardline policy that forbids athletes from competing (or being in the same venue with) athletes from Israel. I witnessed this firsthand at the 2012 Junior World Wrestling Championships in Pattaya, Thailand, where Iranian athletes were forced to forfeit matches against Israeli athletes; after careful inquiry of a number of Iranians in attendance, I found this to be a reflection of their government, not the Iranian athletes or fans present.

Sport should be a catalyst for young people to learn the values of good sportsmanship and moral character. Unfortunately, trash-talking, taunting and the harassment of opponents are now facets of our sporting environments. A “win at all costs” mentality can obscure what the true purpose of sports should be: personal growth (including resiliency and mental well-being), respect for your opponent and development of community. The prevalence of profanity in our culture, especially at the highest levels of politics, entertainment and sport, is exceptionally damaging to our youth. Sports diplomacy programming and educational activations focused on leadership, character, morality and sportsmanship can go a long way toward changing this trend.

Social media is a gift, and ... a problem. Many now live in “silos” of digital information — a wealth of information, but also a compartmentalized, insulated environment, and in many cases, susceptible to bias, misinformation and hate. It should be inherent to any organization that looks to expand on the soft power of sports to build the concepts of digital media literacy into their programming. Media literacy, which can include bias identification, ethical communication and combating misinformation, can be an effective agent in the sports diplomacy toolkit. Carefully planned educational learning centers and modeling can go a long way toward ameliorating these issues. Effective education can also address issues of youth resiliency and management of expectations and demands from both the athletes and parents — topics that continue to be at the top of many school district and community agendas.

Sports participation is rapidly increasing across the world. Surprisingly, the commercialization of sports that accompanies this growth can be applied toward positive change. Look no further than the advancements of professional organizations, such as the NFL Foundation, which seeks to improve each Super Bowl host community, and partnerships between former NFL players and foundations, focused on the engagement of populations across international borders to effect social change. ABC Sports Foundation, based in Nashville, has developed a number of signature international initiatives, including Football For Change and the Pro Legends series, programs that partner current and former NFL players to empower youth and communities in Mexico and in the United States. Can smaller leagues and teams apply this model? The evidence is clear: Through targeted investment, marketing, and mindful programming, all sports — both professional and amateur — can benefit from the features of sports diplomacy.

Despite the promising achievements of professional entities such as the NFL, and more grassroots, community-driven organizations like ABC Sports Foundation, this progress is — to a large extent — not being harnessed at a national level through concerted sports diplomacy strategies, and in many ways the U.S. is being left behind by other nations that have identified the benefits of such engagements. Australia, for example, launched its “Sports Diplomacy Strategy 2032+” initiative to achieve a range of goals, underpinned by nine focal areas and a clear strategy to help achieve them. At the forefront is a commitment by the Australian government to use sports as a vehicle to “build relationships with international partners, shape perceptions of Australia, (and) advance our interests and demonstrate our values.”

Sport diplomacy can also be evident in local, national, or international sports exchange program development — many of which may have existed in the past, but have more recently been seen as too costly. These must move forward, to help youth to not only break out of the aforementioned “silos of information,” but to establish channels for cultural and social understanding between distant regional groups and societies. The Maine/Nebraska Cultural Wrestling Exchange is a great example. The longest-running exchange of its type of high school athletes in America (now entering its 41st year), this exchange provides an opportunity for student athletes (both boys and girls) from two very different states and regions of the United States to interact not only in competition, but in their daily lives during the week they spend together in their local communities. Exchanges of this type can act as a model for other pilot programs.

In this coming decade of sport in America, I believe sports at all levels have a duty in making the world a better place. Sport is the one universal language in which all races, ethnicities, religions, and economic sectors can develop mutual understanding and cooperation to build a better world. The upcoming 2026 FIFA World Cup is the first opportunity: Cities across North America are united in hosting millions of diverse visitors and fans from across the world, creating an atmosphere of connection and community.

Bryan Thompson is CEO and founder of Hammerhead Consulting Group, a nonprofit sports and technology consulting firm based in York, Maine.

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