Great comments by Russell Jaslow - I think you did rival me in terms of length. :-) I believe that the contract HE has with NESN provides for NESN to produce the games themselves with little or no payments being made to the league. HE in return does all the legwork in terms of getting advertising, and it is from advertising that HE makes its money. This is why the new PR guy for HE, Tim Burton, has the title of "Director of Marketing and Media Relations". The nice thing about this deal, as I see it, is that the league has a direct interest in attracting as much advertising as possible because the league directly benefits from it - rather than if it were NESN who was selling the product. And NESN benefits by filling the air time almost for free, as well as having another attraction for local prospective cable customers. Showing more hockey is also bound to drive up interest in one of NESN's primary reasons for existence, the Boston Bruins. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] Cabletron Systems, Inc. *HMM* 11/13/93 <<<<< Color Voice of the Merrimack Warriors (station TBA for 94-95) >>>>>