Making Hockey the Next Big Thing

The Figures

Most of the figures regarding the European leagues are healthy. An important point  is that both attendance and the number of registered players are increasing.

• • The top 100 European clubs averaged 5,905 for the 2015/16 season. This is an increase from 5,830 last year.
  • SC Bern of the Swiss National League A came out tops with an average of 16,145
  • Germany’s DEL league were well represented with Eisbaren Berlin, Kolner Haie and Adler Mannheim coming in 2^nd (13,021), 3^rd (12,037) and 5^th (11,657) respectively. SKA St. Petersburg sits in the 4^th spot of attendance, with 11,789.
  • The Swiss NLA is the most attended league in Europe with an overall average of 7,026 – 3.9% more than last season. It is a landmark achievement as it is the first time any European league has attendance figures of over 7,000.
  • In second place, Germany’s DEL also saw a healthy increase of 3.6% (6,647).
  • 14 different countries and 18 different leagues are featured in the top 100 clubs

Let’s put those numbers into perspective. In the UK, where hockey’s profile seems to suffer more than in many of its European cousins, the EIHL has an average of 2,719 (8^th highest in Europe). This figure is higher than all domestic rugby union leagues below the Aviva Premiership. It is also still more than the Vanarama league (the 4^th tier of football in England). The figure is significantly higher than average attendance in Scotland’s Leagues 1 and 2 (the 3^rd and 4^th tiers).

The Issue

So is there a problem, and if so how much of one is there? The figures are OK, and quite encouraging in some respects. Still, the sport is struggling financially in several areas.

You don’t have to be an economist to realise that the more people you have attending games, the more media interest that generates, the more sponsorship that brings into the game, the better players that attracts to the leagues, the more people take up the game, and on and on. It is a virtuous circle. It is also very much a chicken-or-the-egg situation. Each link in the chain seems dependent on the ones before it. Strengthening any one of those links would have a knock on effect – a chain reaction, with all the other factors.

So by tackling any one of those issues we are in effect tackling all of them. In no particular order, here are some of the initiatives clubs and the sport as a whole, could take to move the sport up to the next level, inspired by other sports of different calibres.

Sponsorship

Big corporations have a marketing budget hockey teams can only dream of. Of course, they operate very much with a “what’s in it for me?” mentality, but in general, sponsoring sports teams and leagues is a good and (relatively) cheap way of increasing brand awareness and reach into a community.  Skoda is the new sponsor of the Champions Hockey League, and its presence could be used as a catalyst to bring other businesses and organisations in at a club level. The sport is seen as family-orientated, with a ratio of female-to-male supporters of about 50/50  – something refreshing and unusual in professional sport. This is certainly something that can be used to hockey’s advantage.

Social Media 

Social media and sports stars can occasionally be a recipe for disaster, but when used properly, they provide a fantastic way of reaching out to millions of people, getting your brand into people’s homes at a fraction of the price of more traditional advertising.  A very good example of an industry taking full advantage of the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to spread its message and to get fans interested and talking is poker. Poker brands take advantage of the social media and even address this approach by compiling social media list. For instance, PokerStars recently published last year’s list of best poker moments from social media. That sort of presence enables brands to connect with their fans as well as promote specific content, even recycle content that has proven popular with audiences, as PokerStars has done in this example. Hockey could be doing the same thing, on a club, league or even player level, with the right mentality and just a little effort.

Follow Examples of Other Sports: Cricket, Darts and More

Hockey is not alone in looking for new investment, interest and spectators. In the last decade, there have been attempts – both successful and failed – of sports who have reinvented themselves in order to attract a new, bigger audience. The most obvious and radical one of these is Twenty20 cricket, with NatWest also sponsoring T20 Blast. The birth of T20 –  a shorter version of cricket, where games are typically complete in three hours –  has changed the face of the traditional sport to such an extent, that some have expressed fears for the original format of the game. From a marketing perspective though, the shortened version of the sport has been a phenomenal success. One way in which T20 succeeded was in bringing in a demographic that was almost non-existent, particularly at the club level: women and children.  T20 and cricket may be an extreme example – after all, it is a whole new sport, but other sports have managed to successfully change their image without such a shake-up.

In the space of a decade, darts has gone from the preserve of overweight men in smoky rooms to one of the highest viewed events on Sky Sports, with more than 1.7 million watching the PDC world final. The sport is now also offered by most sportsbooks.

American football has raised its profile significantly in the UK with established, high profile NFL teams playing a number of league matches – as opposed to friendlies - at Wembley Stadium.

All these are just examples of sports daring to do something altogether different to get the coverage and attention to increase its fan base. Just examples, but perhaps examples to get inspiration from.

Piggyback on Existing Hockey Success

Every four years, hockey is beamed into the homes of millions of people who would otherwise have never tuned in to the sport. The men’s final in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics was watched by half the population of Canada – 17 million. 80% of Canadians watched part of the game. Those are the highest viewing figures in the nation’s history. That may not come as a surprise for such a hockey obsessed country. However, more than 2 million watched it on the BBC in the UK, despite it being late on a Sunday night. That’s certainly unexpected.

As a sport, everyone from the clubs upwards needs to be prepared for the momentum and domestic interest the Olympics can create. It is not that long lived an opportunity, despite being recurring, so they have to move quickly to take full advantage when the next high profile hockey match takes place.

Additionally, clubs and leagues in Europe should not see the NHL as a competitor, but instead embrace the interest it can create on this side of the Atlantic. The Barclays Premier League is massive all across Asia, but most countries see it as a positive thing to drive interest in their own domestic leagues, as opposed to competition.

The Power of Celebrities

When Louis Tomlinson of One Direction fame signed and played for the Doncaster Rovers, it created enormous interest in the Championship outfit. Suddenly the South Yorkshire team was followed by millions of teenage girls around the globe. It may not be much of a marketing strategy, but clubs should certainly take advantage of any celebrity connections and interest they can find. Even a mere tweet of a result or transfer involving the team a celebrity supports will generate interest in the club among their thousands or even millions of followers that would never have been reached by traditional methods.

The sport as a whole, and every single club needs to play their part in promoting the sport and getting in into as many people’s hearts as possible. Don’t forget that similar conversations are being played out in the boardrooms and marketing offices of so-called minority sports all across the continent. Doing nothing apart from crossing our fingers is only going to lead to moving backwards as a sport. Those of us who do follow the sport know one thing: once people are welcomed through the door, and see for themselves what a passionate, thrilling and captivating sport it really is, then they are more than likely to stay. It is everyone’s job to get them through that door in the first place. 

Tweets by @eurohockey