For not less than 4 years, ladies’s skilled hockey gamers advocated vociferously for one unified league.
About one week in the past, it lastly occurred when Mark Walter, a co-owner of MLB’s Los Angeles Dodgers, introduced his firm purchased out the Premier Hockey Federation (PHF) and would stop its operations. Days later, the Skilled Girls’s Hockey Gamers’ Affiliation (PWHPA) ratified a collective bargaining settlement (CBA) with the Walter group to start a brand new unnamed professional league in January 2024.
There’ll reportedly be six groups evenly divided between Canada and the U.S., with participant salaries starting from $35,000 to $80,000 US.
Included within the CBA is medical insurance, a retirement plan, business rights, maternity go away and far more.
One exhausting half is over. The subsequent one, nevertheless, is simply starting.
Specialists say amongst key subsequent steps in guaranteeing the league’s success are figuring out the proper markets, pretty allocating gamers throughout the league, negotiating a good media rights deal and securing sponsorship. A take care of the NHL could possibly be useful, they are saying, however solely on sure phrases.
Laurel Walzak, who was chair of the Canadian Girls’s Hockey League (CWHL) board when it folded in 2019, advised CBC Sports activities the brand new imaginative and prescient for ladies’s hockey is promising — particularly with the backing of Walter, who additionally co-owns English Premier League membership Chelsea and whose estimated web price, per Forbes, is $5.3 billion.
“The best way that it was achieved with the media rights deal earlier than and the sponsors earlier than and occasions earlier than and all that stuff like that, it may possibly’t exist that approach. If it exists that approach, then it’s going to fail,” she stated. “I don’t consider for one second that it’ll exist that approach anymore as a result of a lot has modified since then.”
Figuring out markets
Each Walzak and Ann Pegoraro, the chair of sport administration at Guelph College’s enterprise college, stated the league’s preliminary enterprise mannequin, by which it owns every of the six golf equipment, was intriguing.
Pegoraro stated laying the groundwork equally could be essential within the league’s preliminary buildup.
“However the concept they’ll promote their franchises off, present future income streams and construct out the league by including new franchises on the identical time, I feel that’s obtained to be the tip aim the place there could be particular person franchise house owners and the power to develop throughout North America,” Pegoraro stated.
Within the CWHL’s remaining season, groups had been positioned in Toronto, Montreal and Calgary, along with Markham, Ont., Worcester, Mass., and Shenzhen, China.
A clustering of groups within the northeast may make extra sense to restrict journey prices and focus the hockey to its greatest markets. The Related Press has reported Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, London, Ont., Washington, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston and New York are all into consideration.
Stan Kasten, the Dodgers president who’s thought of a degree man in getting the brand new league off the bottom, advised The Canadian Press his goal is to go public with a league identify and brand, workforce places and a sport schedule within the subsequent two months.
Wherever the league winds up, Walzak stated you will need to preserve followers high of thoughts — even these out of market.
“They want to return and be sure that they’re constructing alliances and doing what they’ll do to speak with the followers and preserve these followers and domesticate these followers into long run in order that they’re going to proceed to spend money on hockey. And thank them as effectively for sticking round and being affected person with all of this,” Walzak stated.
Inside the cities the league chooses, Pegoraro famous they need to choose arenas with development potential.
“I feel if you happen to put them into respectable sized arenas which are hockey particular and good places, I feel that there’s a demand. We noticed that the ladies’s video games within the Olympics, the world Championships drew enormous audiences on tv. So there’s a group that desires to observe these video games,” she stated.
‘Brief-term ache, long-term achieve’
Which can be the place the media rights deal is available in. As Walzak notes, it advantages nobody to play on Sunday mornings or to solely broadcast huge video games. As a substitute, there must be a fulsome settlement the place each sport is accessible, whether or not it’s on conventional broadcast TV or streaming.
“I don’t know if it’s going to be conventional linear. There is perhaps one thing just like what’s achieved with MLS with an Apple TV deal. Who is aware of?” Walzak stated.
“I feel that they’re going to must do issues in a different way as a result of, if you consider it, no person in North America thus far, apart from the massive video games, actually invested closely in broadcast rights for CWHL or PHF.”
Equal participant allocation can be necessary because the league begins to make sure there are stars on each workforce that draw curiosity. Although early reviews have stated gamers will probably be picked on expertise versus earlier allegiances, it’s solely the PWHPA gamers who signed the CBA, and as such it’s honest to marvel if that turns into a tiebreaker for a workforce over a equally gifted PHF participant.
Some PHF gamers had been scheduled to make as much as $150,000 subsequent season.
“For the short-term ache, there’s going to be long-term achieve and there’s going to be sustainability on this league that that will probably be in perpetuity just like what’s occurring with the WNBA, how lastly after so a few years it’s taken off, and NWSL is beginning to take off,” Walzak stated. “Now’s the time for ladies’s sports activities.”
Nonetheless, there might must be some kind of mending of fences between the PWHPA and PHF.
“It regarded like, wow, [the PHF] actually turned the nook and now doubtlessly a superb portion of [players] misplaced jobs. And I feel that that’s a right away hit on the sport,” Pegoraro stated.
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Truthful dealings
Requested what she might advise the brand new league primarily based off her CWHL expertise, Walzak warned in opposition to sponsorship offers that present little or no worth.
“I feel the stakeholders, sponsors must pay up. So the outdated offers of ‘I’ll offer you jerseys to play in’ — no, the place’s the cash? Plus we’ll put on your jerseys. As a result of that’s a part of the deal is you need all the folks to be sporting your jerseys. OK, nice. In order that’s going to price you X quantity of {dollars}.”
Walzak stated the identical applies to the media deal, the place it must be the broadcaster paying manufacturing prices and never the league.
It’s the identical precept that must be employed in talks with the NHL, which has stated prior to now that it’ll help ladies’s hockey when there’s one unified league.
However whereas the brand new league ought to be capable to function by itself, it will likely be competing with the NHL for eyeballs over the winter months.
“Whether or not they want an funding from the NHL or a selected relationship to connect to present franchises, I’m unsure they want that at this level,” Pegoraro stated. “However I feel they want some kind of relationship that can enable them to cross-promote and help one another with out essentially the boys’s league kind of simply dominating on a regular basis.”
Pegoraro added that the pitch to all potential companions must be to have a look at the NWSL’s Angel Metropolis FC, which paid a reported $2-3 million franchise charge earlier than being valued at over $100 million earlier than ever taking part in a sport.
“That is the second, that is the time we’re seeing enormous return on investments. … We all know that the one place that you would be able to get that form of development and return in your greenback proper now’s in ladies’s sports activities.”