The NHL will begin its largest effort yet outside of North America next month when it holds exhibition games in China, part of a newly launched long-term plan to grow the game and league globally.
It’s not the league’s first attempt. The NHL held a series of international games between 2000 and 2003, and another series between 2007 and 2011 but those efforts were curtailed by the 2004-05 and 2012-13 lockouts.
The new effort, which will cost the league an estimated tens of millions of dollars, is promising a long-term presence through grassroots programs and assistance in building hockey infrastructure as well as games and potentially future World Cup of Hockey events, rather than the previous years’ one-off games.
“The biggest thing that has changed since 2011 … is our work to have a more sustained presence in those markets by engaging hockey communities at a grassroots level and working with the federations to make them more like a stakeholder and a partner in the growth of the game. This is something we’ve never done before,” said Lynn White, NHL group vice president of international strategy.
The NHL is targeting 10 to 15 countries, focusing primarily on those already strongly interested in the NHL and hockey, such as Sweden and Finland. The league is tailoring its strategy to each country, as well as working with its media partners to better market the league. For the first time, the league held a European player media tour earlier this month, where it hosted 18 European-born players from 10 teams at an event in Stockholm that drew eight international rights holders and more than 30 other media outlets from across Europe.
The league’s enhanced grassroots effort will be at the core of sustaining that interest, said David Proper, NHL executive vice president of media and international strategy. The NHL has been in contact with federations and organizations across Europe and in China to determine how the league can best support programs that grow the game, from creating the programs themselves or trying to help lower the cost of equipment for new players, to starting programs for coaches. Programs in this vein have begun in China and Sweden.
“If you play the games and then you leave, it’s like the circus coming to town and you don’t build anything,” Proper said. “We want to not only build relationships in each of these markets but maintain them.”
The league’s most ambitious effort is in China, where, compared with countries such as Sweden or Finland, there is nearly no infrastructure for hockey. “For us, it’s been more of a reactionary strategy based on what we’re asked to do and trying to make sure we are moving forward in the right way for the market,” Proper said. The Chinese government, to better prepare itself to host the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, is not only investing in winter sports but also building out a hockey program to compete.
That interest has provided the NHL with an easy gateway into the country. Proper said the league has had conversations with Chinese entities to determine that path, whether it’s helping to build rinks and grassroots programs or even providing assistance to build China’s national team. The league’s Chinese broadcast partner, CCTV, reaches more than one billion viewers, and it signed a five-year deal with TenCent earlier this year to distribute NHL content and games via the company’s digital and mobile platforms as well as help to develop additional digital offerings for the NHL in China.
In the near term, the NHL’s outreach will begin with games in China in September followed by games in Sweden in November. The league is planning to return to China to play games in preseason next year, and will also stage games in Europe during the November IIHF hockey international window as well. It is considering adding a second window of games in Europe later in the season.
The league has begun conversations with potential sponsorship partners in both regions to sponsor not only these events but also the league’s U.S. and Canada tentpole events. SAP and ORG Packaging are the presenting sponsors in Sweden and China, respectively.
“It’s very clear that the international marketplace and growth and expansion of that is critical for growing the collective pie of the NHL’s business,” said David Abrutyn, a partner at Bruin Sports Capital and a former executive at both IMG Consulting and the NHL. “The NHL has always benefitted from the international player base that it has. By tapping into changing media consumption habits and ingraining itself in the fabric of territories around the world, it has a significant opportunity to grow the game.”
