How the NHL can grow through COVID-19 part 2: The sport itself

As the premier league for the sport, the NHL has certain responsibilities and abilities to enact change throughout the rest of the hockey world. In the words of Uncle Ben:

“With great power comes great responsibility.”

When the entire sport looks to your direction, the opportunity to instill effective changes that ripple all the way through to minor hockey programs worldwide is truly unique and one that shouldn’t be taken for granted. From the culture around the game to exposure for other athletes in hockey, the NHL has the power to regulate and initiate changes. In the second part of this series, we will take a closer look at some of the changes that they should make and why they are important for the entire sport of hockey.

One such change has been started but needs some more work in order to increase its effectiveness. The Hockey Diversity Alliance (HDA) was born during the height of the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter movement in the summer of 2020. After players took a few days away from hockey while in the bubbles in order to allow fans, families, and each other the opportunities to have important discussions surrounding racial inequalities, the HDA was announced and featured several current and former NHL players.

We will touch on the #WeSkateFor campaign a little later on but the NHL, though appearing reluctant, entered the discourse being carried by the other major sports leagues. Part of which was the creation of this Alliance and their goals detailed as below:

With an approach towards education and grassroots programs, the plan looks to be a great start. That said, there is room for improvement.

The HDA would agree that an important key to the success of their goals is representation. For children or aspiring athletes and professionals, visual representation gives you role models to look up to. Someone that you can relate to and feel acknowledged by. Currently the HDA, though being relatively diverse racially, lacks many demographics that could assist in taking the HDA to greater success. Women, LGBTQ+, and people of varying abilities are all not represented but reflect enormous portions of the hockey fanbase. The HDA could be a driving force for gender equality and stronger grassroots programs for girls and women alike.

The league’s newest franchise, the Seattle Kraken, have already stood out as a leader in these initiatives. One such hire is that of Chanel Keenan (@chanelly37 on Twitter) as an independent Intersectionality Consultant.

Touching on the #WeSkateFor campaign briefly, the NHL started it out with a strong and focused message “We Skate For Black Lives”. It was simple and focused on the issue at hand. Being a simple slogan, it alone is merely that, but as the playoffs continued the message became lost and diluted. “Black Lives” was eventually replaced by unrelated messages like “The Towel” for the Canucks and “The Thunder” for the Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning. It was easy to see that the message got lost in a short period of time rather than being maintained throughout the entire playoffs. Thus it all seemingly ended after a short blip.

The next idea could be rather ambitious but for the long-term growth of the sport of hockey, it is integral. Finding a better way to showcase and give exposure to women’s hockey. When given the opportunity to be televised, women’s hockey shatters previous TV ratings records. The NHL has incrementally increased exposure to women athletes through the annual NHL All-Star weekend, but there needs to be a platform for their own league. They deserve far more than a meagre 4% market share and the NHL has the leverage to help them grow their game.

In order to grow the sport, you need to be able to reach as wide of an audience as possible and set a standard for what hockey represents. There is an element of internationality to hockey and the NHL has shown some appetite to expand their brand globally by means of their Global Series games in Europe during the preseason and one time also in China. However, if the NHL truly wants to globalize their game to Eurasia, there needs to be a greater focus on prolonged exposure to those markets rather than an occasional exhibition game. Going to play games in non-traditional cities like London, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Tokyo, and Beijing. This can target newer markets rather than just visiting traditional overseas hockey markets. Regular year-round marketing and better accessibility to watching NHL games on their local networks at reasonable times definitely couldn’t hurt, either.

There is tremendous opportunity to continually grow the game and spend less time worrying about existing revenue splits with players. With a potential 6 year Collective Bargaining Agreement coming down the pipeline, there is an unprecedented chance to shift the focus to growing the sport, reaching a wider audience, and increasing revenue. Revenue will be discussed further in the next part of this series.