MADE IN CHINA: THE NEXT HORIZON
With 1.4 billion people, new revenue streams and a growing interest in hockey, it comes as no surprise the top executives are all aboard ‘the China train’
As every hockey fan knows, the shared history of the sport’s three most powerful bodies has been shaped by bitter work stoppages, acrimonious negotiations and a general feeling of hostility that pervades virtually everything they undertake.
And we can all agree this is NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s fault.
But while that history isn’t conducive to mutual co-operation or good-faith bargaining, the NHL, the NHLPA and the IIHF agree on one thing. The newly emerging Chinese omni-market has the potential to revolutionize the sport by creating dizzying new revenue streams while bringing hockey to a country of 1.4 billion.
China, at this stage, is basically to the game what Sutter’s Mill was to the California Gold Rush of 1849. It promises riches. It promises new beginnings. It promises the game a glorious future.
But can the league, the players’ association and the game’s international governing body set aside their differences long enough to share in the bounty? To this we can only answer: They’d better.
“This isn’t something the players or the league can do on their own,” says Donald Fehr, the NHLPA’s executive director. “The difficulties of the relationship between labour and management not withstanding, there’s a shared desire to enhance the business, grow the sport and show this new part of the world what hockey is.
“We have to keep that in mind as we work through this.”
This week, the Vancouver Canucks and Los Angeles Kings meet in a pair of pre-season games in Shanghai and Beijing that signal the start of an exciting new relationship between hockey and China. True, the NHLPA believes the NHL was slow to react to the opportunities presented by the world’s most populous country, but everyone’s on board the China train now.
The next question is where do they go from here?
“If I was the king of the hockey world I’d have done things differently and more quickly,” says Fehr. “What I hope is NHL management sees China is the next horizon in the international market.”
They’d have to be awfully short-sighted to miss it.
“It was more people coming to us, wanting to push the hockey agenda forward,” said David Proper, the NHL VP who’s the point man for the China Game. “We didn’t know what to do at first but the more companies that came over the transom, we said we have to look at this.
“This is about giving people the chance to see the game at its highest level.”
OK, we can argue whether pre-season games between the Canucks and the Kings represent hockey at its highest level. What can’t be argued is the size and scope of the market the league is stepping into.
While tickets for the two-game set are moving slowly, the league, the NHLPA and the IIHF are prepared to play the long game in China, mostly because they can see the potential rewards. Tencent, the Chinese Internet conglomerate, signed a five-year, $700-million US deal with the NBA for the league’s streaming rights two years ago. The NHL’s multi-year deal with Tencent, signed last summer, is worth a fraction of that but, as Fehr says, “It’s a start.”
And there’s so much more to consider. In 2014, 15 million Canadians watched some portion of the gold-medal game between Canada and Sweden in Sochi. China drew an audience of 120 million.
Game 1 of last season’s Stanley Cup Final between Pittsburgh and Nashville drew four million in Canada and five million in the United States. China, you ask? Twenty-two million.
It is that sheer scale of the Chinese market along with the availability of capital that has created a goldrush mentality in the game. Chinese investors have already poured billions into European soccer. Now they’re looking for similar opportunities with NHL teams.
“They’re very much in the market and trying to complete a transaction,” Alexander Jarvis, an executive with Blackbridge Cross Borders told The Globe and Mail. Blackbridge has been involved in deals connecting Chinese money with soccer clubs and has been fielding interest in the NHL.
The Boston Bruins, meanwhile, have struck up a sponsorship deal with O.R.G., the packaging giant that is the title sponsor of The China Games and they’re hardly alone. The Washington Capitals and their owner Ted Leonsis is interested in China. The New York Islanders and their owner Charles Wang were one of the first NHL teams to champion Chinese hockey. Former Canucks general manager Mike Gillis and Laurence Gilman, his former assistant GM, have been kicking tires in China.
“There are some things going on there which have piqued our interest,” Gilman said without elaborating.
“I’ve been there six times over the last two years and I can tell you it’s an incredibly dynamic market right now,” said the NHL’s Proper. “There’s a lot of capital to be spent and there’s interest in western properties. We’d be happy if we can emulate what they’ve done in basketball.”
To that end, the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing represents a crucial moment for China, the NHL, the IIHF and assorted other parties. The NHL has already pulled out of the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, a development that infuriates the IIHF.
But IIHF president Rene Fasel, who’s been visiting China since the mid-’90s, sees the government’s commitment to the Olympics and hockey and understands the incredible opportunity the Games represents for his sport.
It doesn’t completely ease the sting of Korea. But it helps.
“The NHL is a business league,” Fasel says from his office in Zurich. “It has nothing do with sport. I know Gary doesn’t like it when I say that, but it’s the truth. The reasons he gives us are business reasons.
“So just say I’m not going (to Korea) because it’s not good for our business and be done with it.”
As for China, Fasel strikes a much different tone.
“When China starts a program and have the backing of the government they are very effective,” Fasel says. “But they need help. They need Hockey Canada (a group which is also working with the Chinese). They need us. They need the coordination.
“We have to build up a sustainable system in China. It doesn’t work to have a team in 2022, then disappear.”
Still, Fasel believes hockey can mimic basketball’s success in China. He points to Yao Ming, the NBA’s first overall pick in 2002, as the catalyst that sparked basketball’s remarkable growth and hopes hockey can deliver a similar star.
“It wasn’t so easy regarding the NBA,” Fasel says. “There was one hero, Yao Ming, who made basketball what it is now.
“We need a hero. We need Chinese hockey players the world sees.”