Bill Daly

William Lawrence Daly III (born May 1, 1964) is an American attorney and the current deputy commissioner and chief legal officer of the National Hockey League (NHL) under Commissioner Gary Bettman. He is also a Hockey Hall of Fame board member and former NHL vice president and chief legal officer. Before joining the NHL front office he worked for the New York law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP. He received his bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College and his J.D. degree from New York University School of Law.

Education and family Daly is the son of William L. Daly Jr. and Donna ( Woodhead) Daly. His mother was from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and his grandfather was a diver who is a member of the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame.

Daly lives in Bethesda, Maryland,

Daly was the NHL's main negotiator during collective bargaining with NHL players in the 2004-05 NHL lock out, that ended in July 2005 when the NHLPA approved the new collective-bargaining agreement (CBA) with a 464–68 vote. The same year, Daly helped negotiate the two-year, $135 million deal with Comcast for the league's cable broadcasting rights.

Daly spoke at the World Hockey Summit in 2010, and stated a desire to increase the number of NHL games in Europe and to market its brands and most popular teams to Europeans.

Daly played a key role in two of the most impactful commercial contracts with TV rightsholders in NHL history. In 2011, he led negotiations on the 10-year U.S. national rights agreement with NBC Sports Group, delivering NHL regular season games regularly to U.S. fans through over-the-air, NBC Sports Network, and NBC's newly created sports cable channel. The deal also provided coverage of almost every Stanley Cup Final game for the first time. In 2013, he again was the lead negotiator in the 12-year Canadian national broadcast and new media deal with Rogers Communications (Rogers Sportsnet).

In 2017, Daly reinvigorated the NHL's international strategy that brought NHL teams to China for the first-ever preseason games in Beijing and Shanghai. It also reintroduced games in Europe, bringing regular season games to Sweden for the first time since 2011.

Responsibilities Daly oversees the NHL's relationship - including negotiating and administering necessary working agreements - with the NHL Alumni Association, American Hockey League, Canadian Hockey League, Hockey Canada and USA Hockey. He is the President of the NHL Foundation, the organization that administers charitable dollars and initiatives for the NHL and its teams. He is a board member for the NHL Players' Emergency Assistance Fund. He is on the Board of Directors, as an NHL representative, for the Hockey Hall of Fame and USA Hockey.