NHL EVP Media & Int’l Strategy DAVID PROPER has had a busy couple of months. Since completing the ’17 NHL Global Series, he has been working on setting up the ’18 event. On Tuesday, the league announced it would hold games in Sweden and Finland next year after playing two games in Sweden last season. It will also send teams to Germany and Switzerland to hold preseason training camps. The league played two preseason games in China last season and through its partnership with Chinese investment firm Bloomage Int’l, the NHL will continue growing its presence in the country. Proper and NHL Deputy Commissioner BILL DALY will host a panel at South by Southwest (SXSW) Sports in Austin, Texas, this weekend to talk about the league’s push into the Chinese market. Proper spoke with SBD Global about what goes into planning the Global Series and what the SXSW Sports panel will entail.
NHL EVP Media & Int'l Strategy David ProperNHL
On choosing locations for Global Series games ...
David Proper: What we’ve done is attempted to identify regions in Europe that fit into a variety of categories. We call them core hockey markets -- which Sweden and Finland are -- and then markets that we think have good hockey infrastructure and are up-and-coming, and we put Switzerland and Germany in those categories. … We chose Finland because it’s obviously a hockey-crazy market and we’ve got some great players from Finland. Sweden is a great hockey market as well and it worked nicely to open our season in Sweden, particularly with how well the games went last year.
On the challenges the NHL faced setting up the series ...
Proper: First, there’s the operational barriers. Its very difficult to get the time to get teams over and make it fit in their schedules. We’ve also got to be cognizant of what is going on in the local market, to make sure we do the best we can to work with the local market in the timing of the games, the teams we pick and the venues we go to. There are obviously a lot of different venues to go to in these countries and we intend to hit a whole bunch of them.
On the SXSW Sports conference ...
Proper: The name of the panel is The NHL’s Power Play In China. It is a panel with Bill Daly, myself and our games partner Bloomage [Int’l] -- out of China -- talking about the strategy and unique aspects of doing business in China. The principles we’re really trying to get across are: How does the NHL as a North American league view doing business in China? In terms of the challenges, unique aspects to it and why we want to do business in China. And [Bloomage Int’l Deputy GM] JESSICA GUO will talk about, from the Chinese company perspective, working with North American companies that are trying to do business in China.
On the Bloomage Int’l partnership ...
Proper: Bloomage owns a number of major venues in China and is one of the preeminent sports venue operators in China. We spoke with them maybe 5-6 years ago when they came to us and mentioned the potential interest in bringing our games to China. From that point forward, we met with them every six months while we were trying to get our ducks in a row. In fairness, we didn’t rush into China. We did two years of research before we set foot, in terms of doing business, in China. At that point, we spent a lot of time talking with [Bloomage] about what a strategy could look like. We became very comfortable with the way they saw the building of the sport in China. … It’s a joint partnership to try to build hockey and grow the NHL
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