Columbus' two painful media cuts led to fan backlash, and three NHL teams face the same pressure
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Columbus cut Bob McElligott and Jeff Svoboda as the NHL takes over its broadcasts. Carolina, Minnesota and St. Louis are in the same group.
The Columbus Blue Jackets did not cut two popular media employees because they ran out of money. They cut them because they no longer own the operation.
Radio voice Bob McElligott had his contract go unrenewed after 17 years, with the club shifting to a simulcast of its television call.
Days later, team insider Jeff Svoboda announced his exit after eight seasons, and beat writer Brian Hedger reported the Jackets Insider role is being discontinued entirely.
The layoffs follow a change above those two jobs
Team president Mike Priest told The Athletic the club understands how fans are feeling, framing the shift as a move toward video-centered content.
The context almost nobody attached to it arrived in July, when the NHL announced NHL Productions will centrally produce regional broadcasts for Columbus, Carolina, Minnesota and St. Louis starting in 2026-27.
That followed the shutdown of the FanDuel Sports Network regional model. Sports Business Journal reported that clubs pay the league for baseline production while keeping distribution and advertising revenue.
A club renting its production stack has far less internal reason to fund a separate radio broadcast or a staff writer whose work lived on a team website.
Three other markets are running the same math
That is the part fans outside Ohio should sit with. The other three clubs in that group signed the same arrangement, and one of them just won everything.
The Carolina Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights in six games in June for the franchise's second Stanley Cup. Winning did not exempt them from the broadcast reality Columbus is being roasted for.
The Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues are in the same position, and none of the four had finalized distribution plans in July.
Columbus earned anger for the timing, two months before a season, and for calling it better service.
But if this model delivers the savings the league is selling, McElligott and Svoboda are not the end of a story.
They are the first invoice, and three more markets have not opened theirs yet.
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Fans have two names in mind for Sportsnet's next round of firings
Fans have two names in mind for Sportsnet's next round of firings