Rebooted after a 12-year hiatus, the World Cup of Hockey returns this weekend. Toronto’s Air Canada Centre is set to play host to some of the ice hockey world’s best-known stars and a competition which, despite its critics, has all the hallmarks of an international spectacle.
Canadians are fiercely protective of their national sport. Ice hockey is to Canada what cricket is to India, or what soccer is to Brazil: a religion. And like any religion it is regarded as inherently sacrosanct.
When the puck drops at the World Cup of Hockey this Saturday, Canadians will have another opportunity – as if they needed one – to show-off their passion for the sport they so revere. Co-organised by the National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) in cooperation with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the World Cup has been revived having previously been staged in 1996 and 2004.
Eight teams are set to go head-to-head inside Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, with the so-called ‘big six’ of Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the USA joined for the first time by Team Europe, comprised of players from European countries not otherwise represented, and Team North America, which is made up of young US and Canadian talent under the age of 23.
This year’s remodelled edition is part of the NHL’s ongoing efforts to reach out to more overseas fans, and is set to feature more than 170 players from ice hockey’s preeminent league – a record for an international ice hockey competition. The involvement of such star power has led some to question the timing of the event, which comes just days before the start of the new NHL season, and has spawned accusations that the tournament is little more than a blatant cash-grab.
Yet the NHL is confident it will only increase the competitiveness of the occasion, helping to ensure it is deemed the genuine international spectacle it is trumpeted to be and not just a money-spinning showcase for the league and its most celebrated stars.
“I think, based on all preliminary indications, this is going to be a huge success when you look at sponsor activation, you look at the use of technology, you look at ticket sales,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told The Canada Press last month.
There is, indeed, plenty of evidence to suggest that hockey-mad Canadians, starved of their beloved obsession for a full summer, have bought into the World Cup. Despite grumblings over inflated ticket prices, lingering doubts over the competition’s authenticity and format, and skepticism surrounding the NHL’s decision to contrive two teams from scratch, over 90 per cent of tickets are reported to have been snapped up.
Some games are sold out and even the pre-tournament exhibition match-ups saw huge crowds: just over 18,000 fans turned out North America’s clash with Europe in Quebec City last week, while 18,687 attended Canada’s grudge match with the USA in Ottawa last Saturday.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman (right) is joined by NHLPA executive director Don Fehr at a pre-tournament publicity event.
Media coverage has been extensive in the host nation, too. A concerted multi-platform promotional campaign has run throughout the summer while the early signs are that the tournament will prove, as expected given its location, a commercial success. According to SportsBusiness Daily, the NHL and NHLPA have secured more than US$25 million in sponsorship for the two-week event, with Bettman saying corporate support has exceeded expectations – even if virtually all of the sponsors brought onboard for the tournament were involved in North American ice hockey either at the league or team level already.
On the sponsorship front, major blue-chip corporations including Adidas, Rogers Communications, PepsiCo, Air Canada, Canadian Tire, Honda, Molson Coors, Tim Hortons, Scotiabank and Visa were announced as backers of the tournament back in March. AutoTrader.ca, EA, Esso/Exon Mobil, Geico, Sonnet, Pizza Pizza and Upper Deck have since been named official partners while German software company SAP, an existing NHL sponsor, will have its logo displayed on the Adidas-made jerseys of all eight competing teams having signed a deal in the middle of last month.
The SAP deal, in particular, has led to cries of sacrilege among hockey purists who see it as a precursor to the introduction of jersey sponsorship in the NHL. Yet Bettman, a self-professed traditionalist and vocal supporter of sponsor-free uniforms, has repeatedly insisted otherwise. “It’s far, far, far from front-burner,” he said recently. “Doing jersey advertising for the World Cup is not in the same universe as putting advertising on NHL sweaters.”
“Based on all preliminary indications, this is going to be a huge success.”
NHLPA executive director Don Fehr has nevertheless alluded to the way in which the World Cup is being treated as a testing ground for in-game innovations, not only for jersey advertising but also for player tracking technology, which was first trialled at the 2015 NHL All-Star Game, and digital dasherboards.
“This tournament gives us an opportunity to experiment with things, to see if they work, to see if it can be done in a fashion which is tasteful,” Fehr said last month. “All we can do is create the events, create the opportunities for the impression, and hope, as we all expect, the hockey will be spectacular and take care of itself.”
Each World Cup sponsorship package includes the right to run tournament-themed promotions, as well as other marketing rights such as in-venue signage, NHL media and national broadcast integrations, and on-site activations at official fan events. Scotiabank has specifically signed up to sponsor the World Cup of Hockey Fan Village, a ten-day, 250,000 square-foot event in Toronto’s historic Distillery District that will feature live musical performances, appearances from NHL players, on-site TV and radio broadcasts, and a multitude of other activities.
The NHL and NHLPA are splitting costs and revenues tied to the World Cup equally, ensuring the latter party and its members have a financial stake in its commercial success. Indeed, the players are at the core of the World Cup concept, as Sandra Monteiro, the NHLPA’s chief of global business strategies, told SportsPro late last year.
“They change the whole dynamic,” she said. “We’re talking about the possibility of having all the teams with the best NHL players committed for this event to be a total success. It might be a minor factor but it changed all the dynamics. It also explains, a little bit, the initial odd format.”
Adidas, the NHL's new exclusive uniform provider, has created gear for every team at the World Cup.
While the NHL and NHLPA have jointly marketed the event, Lagardère Sports has led sponsorship sales in Europe. The French sports marketing agency was appointed in February to sell commercial assets including the use of tournament and team marks, as well as dashboard advertising during European broadcasts. Lagardère also sold on-ice and in-arena branding for pre-event exhibition games in Russia, Finland, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
Rival agency IMG, meanwhile, won the contract to distribute the tournament’s media rights globally as part of a wider deal with the NHL last October. Since then, the agency has been marketing the rights in all territories outside the USA, Canada and the Nordic countries, helping to ensure the tournament is regarded as an international event worthy of its World Cup moniker.
“This is the first of the events that the NHL and the NHLPA are negotiating to approach in an international market,” explained Monteiro. “It’s a serious consideration. The reason, for example, for the relationship with IMG is that we want to try and partner with people that are on the ground, with the expertise in the territories where we want to expand, that can help us to reach out to those markets.”
“We’ll evaluate what went really well, what we can do better and then we’ll decide how to proceed from there.”
In Canada, Rogers Sportsnet will provide exclusive English-language coverage while TVA Sports has the French-language rights. In the US, ESPN has snapped up exclusive television and radio rights having not aired any professional hockey since 2004. NBC, the NHL’s existing US broadcast partner whose contract runs until 2021, reportedly turned down a deal because it was unable to accommodate the World Cup into its schedule.
Elsewhere, ESPN International will provide coverage in over 20 countries served by its Pacific Rim and Latin North networks. Further deals have been signed by IMG with the likes of Viasat in Scandinavia, Canal Plus in France, and Match TV in Russia. Eurosport will televise action elsewhere in Europe, with organisers having taken the strategic decision to schedule games involving European teams in afternoon slots in the hope of boosting TV ratings across the Atlantic.
As Kyle McMann, the NHL’s vice president of integrated marketing, explained to The Toronto Star, the aim is “to create familiarity with the game’s greatest players, tying into national loyalties, and put it at a time where more fans can consume it live.”
Aside from the obvious commercial concerns, the NHL and NHLPA will be hoping the tournament turns out to be a success for other reasons, too. If the media reports are true, the participation of NHL players at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang remains in doubt, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) currently refusing to cover travel, accommodation and insurance costs for competing players, as it has done for the past five editions of the Games.
Formal discussions on the matter are expected to commence after the World Cup but it is assumed that a successful tournament, which could be seen as a challenge to the Olympics’ supremacy in future, would only strengthen the NHL’s position in negotiations.
Beyond those talks, the NHL's long-term international growth strategy includes the compelling prospect of a Ryder Cup-style North America versus Europe competition in 2018 before an expanded World Cup, possibly featuring more cities and additional teams, takes place two years later. The precise format of that event is due to be decided following the conclusion of this year’s edition on 1st October.
“We’ll evaluate what went really well, what we can do better and then we’ll decide how to proceed from there,” said Bettman.
Rebooted after a 12-year hiatus, the World Cup of Hockey returns to its spiritual heartland this week. Toronto’s Air Canada Centre is set to play host to some of the ice hockey world’s best-known stars and a competition that, despite its critics, has all the hallmarks of an international spectacle.
Canadians are fiercely protective of their national sport. Ice hockey is to Canada what cricket is to India, or what soccer is to Brazil: a religion. And like any religion it is regarded as inherently sacrosanct.
When the puck drops at the World Cup of Hockey this weekend, Canadians will have another opportunity – as if they needed one – to show-off their passion for the sport they so revere. Co-organised by the National Hockey League (NHL) and the National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) in cooperation with the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF), the World Cup has been revived having previously been staged in 1996 and 2004. Eight teams are set to go head-to-head inside Toronto’s Air Canada Centre, with the so-called ‘big six’ of Canada, the Czech Republic, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the USA joined for the first time by Team Europe, comprised of players from European countries not otherwise represented, and Team North America, which is made up of young US and Canadian talent under the age of 23.
This year’s remodelled edition is part of the NHL’s ongoing efforts to reach out to more overseas fans, and is set to feature more than 170 players from ice hockey’s preeminent league – a record for an international ice hockey competition. The involvement of such star power has led some to question the timing of the event, which comes just days before the start of the new NHL season, and has spawned accusations that the tournament is little more than a blatant cash-grab. Yet the NHL is confident it will only increase the competitiveness of the occasion, helping to ensure it is deemed the genuine international spectacle it is trumpeted to be and not just a money-spinning showcase for the league and its most celebrated stars.
“I think, based on all preliminary indications, this is going to be a huge success when you look at sponsor activation, you look at the use of technology, you look at ticket sales,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told The Canada Press last month.
There is, indeed, plenty of evidence to suggest that hockey-mad Canadians, starved of their beloved obsession for a full summer, have bought into the World Cup. Despite grumblings over inflated ticket prices, lingering doubts over the competition’s authenticity and format, and skepticism surrounding the NHL’s decision to contrive two teams from scratch, over 90 per cent of tickets are reported to have been snapped up. Some games are sold out and even the pre-tournament exhibition match-ups saw huge crowds: just over 18,000 fans turned out North America’s clash with Europe in Quebec City last week, while 18,687 attended Canada’s grudge match with the USA in Ottawa last Saturday.
Media coverage has been extensive in the host nation, too. A concerted multi-platform promotional campaign has run throughout the summer while the early signs are that the tournament will prove, as expected given its location, a commercial success. According to SportsBusiness Daily, the NHL and NHLPA have secured more than US$25 million in sponsorship for the two-week event, with Bettman saying corporate support has exceeded expectations – even if virtually all of the sponsors brought onboard for the tournament were involved in North American ice hockey either at the league or team level already.
On the sponsorship front, major blue-chip corporations including Adidas, Rogers Communications, PepsiCo, Air Canada, Canadian Tire, Honda, Molson Coors, Tim Hortons, Scotiabank and Visa were announced as backers of the tournament back in March. AutoTrader.ca, EA, Esso/Exon Mobil, Geico, Sonnet, Pizza Pizza and Upper Deck have since been named official partners while German software company SAP, an existing NHL sponsor, will have its logo displayed on the Adidas-made jerseys of all eight competing teams having signed a deal in the middle of last month.
The SAP deal, in particular, has led to cries of sacrilege among hockey purists who see it as a precursor to the introduction of jersey sponsorship in the NHL. Yet Bettman, a self-professed traditionalist and vocal supporter of sponsor-free uniforms, has repeatedly insisted otherwise. “It’s far, far, far from front-burner,” he said recently. “Doing jersey advertising for the World Cup is not in the same universe as putting advertising on NHL sweaters.”
NHLPA executive director Don Fehr has nevertheless alluded to the way in which the World Cup is being treated as a testing ground for in-game innovations, not only for jersey advertising but also for player tracking technology, which was first trialled at the 2015 NHL All-Star Game, and digital dasherboards.
“This tournament gives us an opportunity to experiment with things, to see if they work, to see if it can be done in a fashion which is tasteful,” Fehr said last month. “All we can do is create the events, create the opportunities for the impression, and hope, as we all expect, the hockey will be spectacular and take care of itself.”
Each World Cup sponsorship package includes the right to run tournament-themed promotions, as well as other marketing rights such as in-venue signage, NHL media and national broadcast integrations, and on-site activations at official fan events. Scotiabank has specifically signed up to sponsor the World Cup of Hockey Fan Village, a ten-day, 250,000 square-foot event in Toronto’s historic Distillery District that will feature live musical performances, appearances from NHL players, on-site TV and radio broadcasts, and a multitude of other activities.
The NHL and NHLPA are splitting costs and revenues tied to the World Cup equally, ensuring the latter party and its members have a financial stake in its commercial success. Indeed, the players are at the core of the World Cup concept, as Sandra Monteiro, the NHLPA’s chief of global business strategies, told SportsPro late last year.
“They change the whole dynamic,” she said. “We’re talking about the possibility of having all the teams with the best NHL players committed for this event to be a total success. It might be a minor factor but it changed all the dynamics. It also explains, a little bit, the initial odd format.”
While the NHL and NHLPA have jointly marketed the event, Lagardère Sports has led sponsorship sales in Europe. The French sports marketing agency was appointed in February to sell commercial assets including the use of tournament and team marks, as well as dashboard advertising during European broadcasts. Lagardère also sold on-ice and in-arena branding for pre-event exhibition games in Russia, Finland, the Czech Republic and Sweden.
Rival agency IMG, meanwhile, won the contract to distribute the tournament’s media rights globally as part of a wider deal with the NHL last October. Since then, the agency has been marketing the rights in all territories outside the USA, Canada and the Nordic countries, helping to ensure the tournament is regarded as an international event worthy of its World Cup moniker.
“This is the first of the events that the NHL and the NHLPA are negotiating to approach in an international market,” explained Monteiro. “It’s a serious consideration. The reason, for example, for the relationship with IMG is that we want to try and partner with people that are on the ground, with the expertise in the territories where we want to expand, that can help us to reach out to those markets.”
In Canada, Rogers Sportsnet will provide exclusive English-language coverage while TVA Sports has the French-language rights. In the US, ESPN has snapped up exclusive television and radio rights having not aired any professional hockey since 2004. NBC, the NHL’s existing US broadcast partner whose contract runs until 2021, reportedly turned down a deal because it was unable to accommodate the World Cup into its schedule.
Elsewhere, ESPN International will provide coverage in over 20 countries served by its Pacific Rim and Latin North networks. Further deals have been signed by IMG with the likes of Viasat in Scandinavia, Canal Plus in France, and Match TV in Russia. Eurosport will televise action elsewhere in Europe, with organisers having taken the strategic decision to schedule games involving European teams in afternoon slots in the hope of boosting TV ratings across the Atlantic. As Kyle McMann, the NHL’s vice president of integrated marketing, explained to The Toronto Star, the aim is “to create familiarity with the game’s greatest players, tying into national loyalties, and put it at a time where more fans can consume it live.”
Aside from the obvious commercial concerns, the NHL and NHLPA will be hoping the tournament turns out to be a success for other reasons, too. If the media reports are true, the participation of NHL players at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang remains in doubt, with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) currently refusing to cover travel, accommodation and insurance costs for competing players, as it has done for the past five editions of the Games. Formal discussions on the matter are expected to commence after the World Cup but it is assumed that a successful tournament, which could be seen as a challenge to the Olympics’ supremacy in future, would only strengthen the NHL’s position in negotiations.
Beyond those talks, the NHL's long-term international growth strategy includes the compelling prospect of a Ryder Cup-style North America versus Europe competition in 2018 before an expanded World Cup, possibly featuring more cities and additional teams, takes place two years later. The precise format of that event is due to be decided following the conclusion of this year’s edition on 1st October.
“We’ll evaluate what went really well, what we can do better and then we’ll decide how to proceed from there,” said Bettman.
