The NHL has experienced a surge in int’l subscription sales for its streaming product this season, according to a league official. To date, NHL GameCenter Live, the league’s cross-platform streaming service, has seen a 20% jump in subscriptions outside of North America on a year-over-year basis. Int’l GCL subscriptions account now for more than 30% of total subscription numbers, said Nili Doft, the NHL’s VP of digital products & marketing. The league did not provide total subscription numbers. Doft identified a more aggressive marketing approach, paid searches and the re-launch of the free NHL app as the driving forces behind the uptick. “We tried to be more contextually relevant with the marketing -- primarily digital marketing. We also were much more aggressive in what we were doing in the app and in paid search than in the past,” she said. The league’s redesigned app, which launched ahead of the ’14-15 season, has a number of “watch prompts” and “watch cues” built into its otherwise free content. The league’s top 5 int'l markets in terms of subscription sales remained the same: Australia, U.K., Germany, Switzerland and Russia. Doft said in the case of Australia -- the No. 1 int’l market -- expats might be playing a contributing role. She added that while it is not a typical hockey market, it is a vivid sports market, with some of the league's other int’l businesses also having Australia on the top of their lists in terms of traffic and e-commerce.
THE RIGHT PRICE: Other than in the U.S., where a full-season subscription has a price tag of $159, the NHL used a two-tier price structure internationally. GCL subs were $74.95 in Eastern European countries and $99.95 everywhere else, according to league information. Doft pointed out that NHL games happen in the middle of the night in a lot of countries that drive sales. As a result, the league plays up GCL features such as full-length game replays or access to classic games in its int'l marketing message. "That’s one of the things that we kind of surface more in international messaging than we do domestically," she said. "Also, the availability of playoff games is something we have in the international product that’s not available in the U.S. since every game is nationally televised."
