Russian ice hockey league the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) has announced a one-year rights deal covering the 2012-13 season with sports broadcaster ESPN in North America and the UK.
Under the deal, the ESPN3 online streaming platform will provide coverage of games.
Global interest in the KHL has been stoked by the arrival of stars such as Alex Ovechkin, Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk, Alex Semin, Zdeno Chara and Ilya Kovalchuk from North America’s NHL ice hockey league. The players have signed short-term contracts with KHL clubs after the NHL’s players failed to agree a new revenue-sharing deal with the North American league. The dispute between the players and the NHL is threatening to cause a postponement or even cancellation of the league’s 2012-13 regular season.
The league did not say whether all of the coverage would be live or how many games ESPN3 would show over the course of the season. However, it did say that five games would be shown on ESPN3 between today and October 9.