The National Hockey League drew record crowds, more TV viewers and new sponsors this season by borrowing strategies from the National Football League. Now it needs TV networks to take notice and ante up.
The NHL cut US$400 million in labor costs following a season-long lockout four years ago and changed its rules to increase scoring and heighten visibility of players like Washington’s Alex Ovechkin and Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby.
The league’s focus is on attracting sponsors that will ultimately lead to more TV money. The league is banking on digital media and special events like its outdoor Winter Classic, played this year at Chicago’s Wrigley Field, and season openers in Europe to excite its fan base and help sponsors reach a bigger audience, chief operating officer John Collins said.
“If we grow our share of the sports advertising marketplace, I think somebody will step up,” Collins said during an interview in New York. “We can be the first domestic league that looks at a global rights offering.”
The NHL projects revenue will grow 4 percent this year to US$2.7 billion, with about US$675 million coming from national and local TV. The NFL received about US$3.7 billion in US TV revenue this year.
The NHL has national TV agreements in the US with Comcast Inc’s Versus cable network and General Electric Co’s NBC, whose agreement includes rights to five games of the best-of-seven Stanley Cup Final.
GOING DIGITAL
The league is right to focus on building its TV audience by targeting its young fans with digital offerings, said Neal Pilson, former head of CBS Sports and now a New York-based broadcast consultant.
“By 2013 the digital, Web and mobile audience will be sufficiently larger, so the NHL will be able to combine those users with their TV audience to attract sponsorships that will support a major TV deal,” Pilson said in an e-mail.
Collins, 47, spent 15 seasons at the NFL and helped plan the inaugural “NFL Kickoff” celebration in New York’s Times Square in 2002.
It was a hit for sponsors, prompting the league to focus its marketing on big events. Over the next 14 months, the NFL increased sponsorships by US$1.9 billion, Collins said.
“I see so many similarities to the NFL,” he said. “They know how to lift their passion for a game to a level that is bigger than just their local team.”
The biggest of the NHL’s showcases is the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day that is played outdoors and harkens to the roots of the sport when players skated on backyard ponds. It was watched by 2.8 million US households this year, up from 2.5 million in last year.
The NHL “Face-Off” is a Thursday-through-Saturday schedule of games in North America, Stockholm and Helsinki that will be shown on Versus and CBC next season.
“We like to do things around tent poles, or big events,” said John Lewicki, senior director of alliance marketing for McDonald’s Corp. “This is how we started getting involved with the NHL.”
Collins said the league needed to use digital technology to market the NHL to fans, rather than have its following based on individual teams.
The NHL now shows game highlights in arenas around the league and is showcasing players with features on the NHL Network and NHL.com.
The league says half its fans root for teams outside their market. To engage them, the league is tailoring information to individuals via cable television, mobile phones and the Internet.
Commissioner Gary Bettman said high-speed Internet would help the NHL overcome what he says is a lack of media coverage. The fan base is large enough to help the league reach its targets, Bettman said.
Hockey’s regular-season attendance of 21.48 million almost matched the National Basketball Association’s 21.55 million.
The NHL is smart to pursue the digital strategy, said Robert Tilliss, a sports banker at Inner Circle Sports LLC in New York. The challenge will be getting enough fans to care about league-wide events to get a bigger TV contract.
“Hockey has a mostly local fan base,” Tilliss said. “Whether they can get those fans to become more avid and change the way they follow the game, we’ll have to see.”
Growth in these new digital offerings may already be attracting advertisers.
AFFLUENT, TECH-SAVVY
The NHL brought in Bridgestone Corp, which bought the naming rights to the Winter Classic, because research showed hockey fans to be affluent and tech-savvy, said Phil Pacsi, vice president of consumer marketing for the company’s Americas Tire Operations.
“The NHL is a value buy” Pacsi said from his office in Nashville, Tennessee. “We don’t see the same rating as we do on traditional NFL games, but we are seeing increases in ratings year over year.”
This is good news for the NHL, Pilson said.
The more viewers it lures to Internet and TV, the more sponsors will follow and the networks won’t be far behind.
“So long as a sports rights holder can sell an attractive audience, the agencies will buy that sport for their clients,” Pilson said.
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