{"id":183693,"date":"2025-10-01T23:37:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:37:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/183693\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T23:37:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T23:37:07","slug":"sbj-unpacks-nhls-international-echo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/183693\/","title":{"rendered":"SBJ Unpacks: NHL\u2019s international echo"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prior to last season\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off<\/a>, a hastily organized tournament involving teams representing the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland, it had been nine years since NHL players took part in an international competition. That drought, the longest since NHL players first competed internationally in 1972, strained relations between the league and its players. <\/p>\n

When former U.S. Labor Secretary and Boston Mayor Marty Walsh took over as executive director of the NHL Players\u2019 Association in March 2023<\/a>, he quickly realized resuming international competition, through a return to the Olympics and collaborative events with the league, would be among his top priorities. His arrival served as a catalyst. <\/p>\n

Within a year, the league and union announced their intention to hold 4 Nations in 2025, return to the Olympics in 2026 and establish a biennial cadence of best-on-best competition with a quadrennial World Cup of Hockey. <\/p>\n

The first of those events exceeded organizers\u2019 wildest expectations. 4 Nations captured the attention of audiences in North America and abroad. Five of the seven games in Montreal and Boston sold out, with overall tournament capacity exceeding 98%, and 47.9 million unduplicated viewers across the four participating countries tuned in. In May, 4 Nations won the Sports Business Award for Sports Event of the Year.<\/p>\n

The success of 4 Nations and the newfound spirit of cooperation between the league and union have breathed new life into ambitions to grow their collective business outside North America. <\/p>\n

A Global Game <\/p>\n

The NHL\u2019s greatest asset for global growth is the international makeup of its player pool, about 30% of whom hail from outside of North America. Sweden (10%), Russia (6%), Finland (6%) and Czechia (2%) rank behind Canada and the U.S. as the largest producers of NHL players. Aside from Russia, those countries have each hosted preseason and regular-season games in recent years as part of the league\u2019s Global Series, along with other hockey hotbeds such as Switzerland and Germany. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to take advantage of the fact that so many of our players are from outside North America,\u201d said NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly. \u201cWe concentrate on where those players are coming from and we try to connect the fans in those countries with the players.\u201d <\/p>\n

In addition to playing overseas, the league has made several strategic moves in recent years aimed at growing its global business. Digitally enhanced dasherboard technology<\/a> has allowed the NHL to provide European sponsors with virtual on-screen exposure. The introduction of broadcast windows in prime time for European audiences and a new deal for DAZN to offer its NHL.tv package<\/a> in nearly 200 countries are making games more accessible abroad. The opening of a permanent office last year in Zurich has positioned the league to reach more European brands and broadcasters on their own turf. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs far as our NHL business goes and what we\u2019ve been doing with Global Series games and working on our schedule and our rights arrangements to put more games into a time period where the European hockey audience is awake and able to easily consume them, this is a huge opportunity,\u201d said Kyle McMann, the NHL\u2019s senior vice president of North American business development. <\/p>\n

The 2026 Olympics <\/p>\n

The return of NHL players to the Olympics for the first time since 2014 is perhaps the most intriguing storyline heading into the 2025-26 season. The move will require the league to pause its season for 19 days from Feb. 6-25. While the agreement between the NHL, NHLPA and International Ice Hockey Federation<\/a> is only for the 2026 Games, the parties are touting it as having \u201copened the door\u201d for future editions, including the 2030 French Alps and 2034 Salt Lake City Games.<\/p>\n

Previously, the NHL and teams had been frustrated by their inability to effectively use the players\u2019 participation in the Olympics \u2014 a competition they don\u2019t own or operate \u2014 to drive interest in the league due to the International Olympic Committee\u2019s strict protection of its intellectual property. The terms of the participation deal and the IIHF\u2019s separate agreement with the IOC have not been disclosed, but the league believes it will have more freedom this time around. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some provisions that we negotiated that are favorable to that position,\u201d Daly said. \u201cBut more noteworthy to me was the overall sense of cooperation. … We shouldn\u2019t be hamstrung in some of the ways we had been hamstrung in the past.\u201d <\/p>\n

One key difference will be the ability to capture content at the Olympics that the league and clubs can use on digital platforms. Steve Mayer, the NHL\u2019s president of content and events, said the league expects to have access to players while at the Games, including in the Olympic Village, for the purpose of documenting their experiences. <\/p>\n

The league and union have been leaning into promoting players\u2019 participation in the Milan-Cortina Games, holding their annual European Player Media Tour there<\/a> and partnering on content with Italian soccer league Serie A<\/a>. The league also is planning a Super Bowl-style media day prior to the Olympics at UBS Arena, where NHL players and coaches will appear before traveling through JFK Airport to Milan.<\/p>\n

Steve Scebelo, the NHLPA\u2019s new chief commercial officer<\/a>, said the union is also in discussions with the IOC about a potential \u201cmultiparty license agreement\u201d that would allow for the sale of co-branded collectibles and merchandise commemorating moments from the Games involving NHL players. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s new ground that we\u2019re trying to break, so we\u2019ll see if we can do something innovative with them,\u201d Scebelo said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The 2028 World Cup of Hockey <\/p>\n

While the Olympics are right around the corner, executives at the NHL and NHLPA are already planning the 2028 World Cup of Hockey. Following the success of 4 Nations, expectations for the eight-team competition have been supercharged. <\/p>\n

Organizers plan to hold the event in one North American and one European host city, a move directly aimed at long-term international growth rather than near-term maximization of revenue. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf we actually looked at it commercially, I\u2019m sure it would make more financial sense to play those games in markets across North America, where we\u2019re already strong, but that\u2019s not helping us drive the future,\u201d McMann said. \u201cSo, we\u2019re looking at how do we use \u201928, and then certainly \u201932 and \u201936, and eventually we can see a significant commercial business in Europe.\u201d <\/p>\n

After soliciting expressions of interest, the league and union have invited 25 cities across the two continents to respond to an RFP<\/a>. Playfly Sports is overseeing the selection process, with the winners expected to be announced early next year. That will give the league and union a full two years to monetize what McMann is billing as the \u201cbiggest stand-alone ice hockey tournament in history.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prior to last season\u2019s 4 Nations Face-Off, a hastily organized tournament involving teams representing the U.S., Canada, Sweden…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183694,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-183693","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183694"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}