| Champions League Hockey By Patryk Fournier December 6th, 2006 |
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Alongside certain truths like every promo for FOX’s House will make the same claim “House faces his most challenging case yet” or how CBS uses a Dr. Seuss line of thinking to assemble their Sunday Night lineup (Amazing Race, Cold Case and Without a Trace), is the truth that the NHL has exhausted many avenues in an attempt to increase their feeble (relative to other major sports) revenue streams. The result of these attempts include small partnership agreements with fledgling TV networks (Versus, formerly OLN), and upstart media providers (Google Video, YouTube, Sirius Satellite Radio). Yeah, it’s great that the NHL is branching out in their thinking for increased exposure but I think it’s going to take a much bolder idea to increase the NHL’s global brand. And who better to look for global sports branding ideas than the most the world’s most popular sport. Each year UEFA (the Union of European Football Associations) puts on the Champions League tournament which is comprised of the best European football clubs. The tournament kicks off in the late summer with qualifying rounds, which eventually leads to 32 teams competing in group stage play. The number of teams is subsequently cut down as the tournament progresses, ultimately culminating in a one-game final in May. The appeal of the tournament from a fan perspective is the ability to watch the best European clubs square off in dream match-ups, such as seeing Barcelona play Chelsea or Manchster United play AC Milan; match-ups that otherwise wouldn’t be possible. The appeal from a club level is the prestige of beating every league’s best as well as reaping in huge revenue. For the 2006/2007 Champions League UEFA estimates the gross income will be around €750M or $1.1B CDN, much of which is shared amongst the competing clubs. For instance this year each team that qualifies for the group stage will receive €4.4M or $6.7M CDN and with each subsequent win a team receives more performance bonuses. A team who wins the entire tournament could rack up around €22.7M or $34.6M CDN. Most of the revenue shared in the tournament comes from sold broadcasting rights. Proposal My idea is to stage a similar Champions League tournament every two years comprised of the best clubs from the top hockey leagues on the globe. Entry in the tournament will be based on the cumulative regular season standings over that two year period. The tournament will run during a two-week period in September, formerly the spot on the calendar occupied by the World Cup tournament. With the use of NHL players in the Olympics, and the presence of the annual World Championships in spring the World Cup tournament has become obsolete. Heck no one even knows when or how frequently the World Cup should be played; it’s like Canada’s approach to calling a federal election, it just happens at random intervals. Because the tournament is played in September those NHL clubs who have qualified for the Champions League tournament will forego playing a preseason schedule. As for the argument that teams would miss out on the chance to work out their young players, rookie camps do exist and this is also part of the sacrifice of playing in hockey’s elite club competition tournament. Tournament Breakdown The tournament will be comprised of 12 teams, split into 4 groups. Each team will play 3 games within their group in a round robin format. The top clubs from each of the four groups will then advance and face-off in a semi-final stage, with the winning clubs from those games advancing onto the Champions League final. I see this as a tournament that would work best played out in Europe for the simple fact that I don’t see fans in North America, especially in the U.S. buying tickets to games not involving NHL clubs. The benefit of staging this and any major sporting event in Europe is the ease of travel for competing nations to watch and support their clubs. As for the 12-team breakdown, I’ve accounted for the strength of leagues by suggesting two club spots be given to the NHL, Swedish and Russian leagues.
Benefits of a Champions League So why exactly does hockey need this event? Firstly, it will be the first true gauge of hockey supremacy at club level play – that’s big time bragging rights at stake, especially for the European clubs. For years now the European clubs have watched their greatest talents leave en masse for the NHL. Under the current terms of the IIHF transfer agreement these clubs are being compensated on a very moderate basis. Essentially this tournament is throwing a cookie back to all those European clubs by giving them an opportunity to knock off those NHL clubs and for the European fans it gives them a rare opportunity to watch their former club team stars compete, albeit in an NHL uniform. This tournament also has the ability to grow the brand of the NHL and individual teams to the European market. The NHL is known to European fans as having the greatest collection of hockey talent but seldom do these fans have a chance to experience the talents of Sidney Crosby, Martin Brodeur, Jarome Iginla, Joe Thornton, Scott Niedermayer first hand as they compete for their club. I believe that this exposure will open up avenues of increased merchandise sales for individual NHL clubs as well as improved international broadcast rights sales for the NHL into the varying European markets. The other benefit is the extra revenue that can be had for all of these competing clubs. The Hinging point The single factor that will determine if this tournament is a go is having enough available sponsorship and media broadcast rights revenue. It should be noted that there currently is a tournament that’s being run by the IIHF, the European Champions Cup (ECC). The third ECC tournament will be played later this January over a four day period in St. Petersburg, Russia. The tournament involves six clubs, one each from the Slovakian, Czech, Finnish, Swedish, Russian and Swiss leagues. Currently the ECC offers moderate revenue earnings for the competing clubs. Last year the total prize money amounted to about $668,000 CDN, 45% of which went to the winning club which worked out to be about $300K CDN. Obviously the presence of the NHL and several other leagues under the Champions League of hockey would increase the level of revenue that could be shared. I have to think that this tournament would easily be sold to a Canadian sports network where broadcasting hockey is treated like free food in an office lunch room; all you have to do is put it on the table and people will flock. The U.S. networks would pretty much be a write-off unless someone like ESPN2, who currently broadcasts Champions League soccer, would be willing to put it on air. The rest of the broadcast rights would have to come in the form of several smaller regional broadcast rights sold throughout Europe. Major corporate sponsorship should follow as the tournament establishes itself as premier global club-level competition. Conclusion I think this would be a fantastic tournament and I’m not so sure especially if the games are played on the larger European ice surface that the NHL clubs would run away with this thing. I could certainly see the European club players raising their level of play not only to prove their league’s worth but also their own individual worth. |
Let me know what you thought about this commentary.