Gary Bettman, NHL commissioner, speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Nov. 20, 2024.

CNBC

The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan will mark the first time in 12 years that NHL players will return to the Games, something NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is expecting to have a big effect on the league.

“Ultimately, in terms of balancing the pros and cons, we decided it was important to go back and be on what is one of the most visible platforms in the world,” Bettman said at CNBC Sport and Boardroom’s Game Plan conference in Santa Monica, California, on Tuesday.

Prior to Bettman being named commissioner in 1993, NHL players had not participated in the Olympics. After seeing firsthand the effect that Olympic player participation had on the NBA, Bettman said, the league and the NHL Players’ Association worked to have the players participate starting in 1998.

But that participation stopped after the 2014 Sochi Games, which Bettman said was a reflection of the evolution of the business of the league and the sports industry in general.

“It was a bit of a mixed bag,” Bettman said of the NHL’s participation in the Olympics. “Even though we were shut down for two weeks, our players were treated like invited guests,” he said, adding that the league and its teams “had no control over anything; we didn’t have the rights to promote ourselves.”

There were also competition challenges as well, given the number of players some teams were sending.

Part of what drove the NHL back to the Olympic ice was a shift in that relationship. The NHL and NHLPA’s new deal with the IOC changes some aspects of their commercial arrangement and also upgrades the players’ living conditions while at the Games.

But Bettman also noted it came down to the desire from the players to play best-on-best at a national level, something that was highlighted in the league’s successful 4 Nations Face-Off tournament earlier this year.

“It became clear to me that it was important to our players, who have a history and tradition of representing their countries,” he said.

The NHL will stop play for nearly two weeks this season, and Bettman said Olympic participation “won’t be without its difficulties.” The NHL has not yet formally guaranteed its players will participate in the 2030 Games.

“But on balance, it should be worth it,” he said.

Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all Summer and Winter Games through 2036.

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An Air India Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner.

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LONG BEACH, Calif. — Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said the carrier has embraced a “new normal” and a stepped-up safety focus following the crash of one of its planes in June, the deadliest aviation disaster in a decade.

All but one of the 242 people on board Air India Flight 171 on June 12 were killed when the Boeing Dreamliner, bound for London, crashed seconds after takeoff from Ahmedabad in western India. Another 19 other people were killed on the ground.

A preliminary report released in July showed confusion in the cockpit when fuel cutoff switches were flipped off. The cockpit voice recording captured one pilot asking the other why he cut off the fuel and the other responding that he did not.

“The investigation is still ongoing, so I can’t comment too freely, but this has been an absolutely devastating event for the people involved, for families, for the company, for staff, and our focus over the last two months has been very much to support them in every way possible,” Wilson said at the Airline Passenger Experience Association’s conference and expo in Long Beach, California, on Tuesday.

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“We continue to work with the regulator on the investigation and ensuring that whatever learnings come about from that investigation are put into play. For the moment, the preliminary report indicates nothing wrong with the aircraft, nothing wrong with the engines, nothing wrong with the airlines operation, but we’ve taken a significant safety pause to ensure all of our practices and procedures are fully embedded, and people are fully embracing a new normal of even extra focus on safety, and the focus continues to be on the people that were affected,” he said.

Air India had been in the middle of a massive modernization effort to better compete with other carriers and gain new customers in India’s fast-growing aviation market at the time of the crash. The refresh began after Tata Group privatized the 93-year-old carrier from the government three years ago.

That revamp is continuing with new cabins and better technology, said Wilson, an airline veteran who has previously served as CEO of Scoot, Singapore Airlines’ low-cost carrier. The carrier has placed orders for some 570 aircraft.

“Once Air India was privatized [we] could adopt more normal private sector practices, could make long-term decisions, had the capital to invest,” he said.

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