The NHL will receive increased global exposure this season after successfully adding new partners to its portfolio of media rights holders. The NHL added more than 20 new media partners and grew its global media rights revenue -- excluding the U.S. and Canada -- by approximately 40% on a year-on-year basis, the league revealed. "It has been a good year of renewals," NHL Exec VP of Media & Int'l Sales David Proper told SBD Global. "The World Cup of Hockey has helped generate a lot of international interest. We’ve managed to renew in pretty much every market we were in before, as well as add a number of new markets or [receive] greater exposure in certain markets." The league did not disclose the total number of global media partners or any financial details. In Asia, the league was able to boost its exposure in China by adding a digital distributor, Tencent, and continuing its relationship with state-owned broadcaster CCTV. The NHL, which kicked off its new season on Wednesday, also cut a deal with sports network MBC Sports Plus in South Korea. The two countries, coincidentally, will play host to the upcoming two Winter Olympics -- the 2018 PyeongChang Games and 2022 Bejing Games. Asked if there is a connection between the increased exposure in those two markets and the Olympics, Proper said, "Let’s just say it’s not lost to us, but as you know we haven’t committed to being in the Olympics yet, one way or the other. Certainly, China is a market of significant interest to really everybody. You have to be focused on China as a market if you think you have an opportunity to build a business there. [And South Korea] is a market we haven't been in a meaningful way."
EUROPEAN EXPANSION: The league was also able to make additional inroads into Europe. It reached a deal with Eurosport for the Russian market and signed a new four-year deal with Sport1 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland that will more than double the number of game broadcasts in those countries. But Proper said it is not all about game broadcasts, it is about exposure relevant to the market. He said, "We’ve worked with a number of our broadcast partners and talked to them about creating content that will speak to a particular market. Whether it would be, in Germany, exposés on specific German players, like with Leon Draisaitl, or whether it’s something that talks about the history of hockey in a particular region and how that's affected the NHL. There are a lot of different things we've talked about." The league in Oct. '15 signed a deal with IMG to market and distribute its global media rights outside of the U.S., Canada and Nordic countries.
