PLENTY TO GAIN
NHL eyes move into Chinese market
The easy thing would have been to bring a basketball player. Say, Andrew Wiggins or someone from the Toronto Raptors. Someone everybody knew. Instead, when BioSteel launched its sports nutrition drink company in China this summer, it brought a virtual nobody to its official launch. Well, sort of. Hours after scoring the winning goal in the gold-medal game for Canada at the World Hockey Championships in Moscow this past May, Connor McDavid boarded a plane for Beijing where he became the first active NHLer to make an official visit to the country.
To North Americans, McDavid is a superstar. To the Chinese, he was an enigma.
McDavid walked freely around the Forbidden City and the Great Wall of China, not getting asked for autographs, as he had been a day earlier in Moscow. When he arrived at Beijing’s 101 Middle School to meet some of the country’s promising young hockey players, about 20 kids showed up.
The lack of buzz was such that after getting interviewed during a local broadcast of Game 7 in the Eastern Conference final between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins, a representative from the TV station apologized for the lack of viewers because the game was on in the morning and was competing against a Golden State Warriors’ National Basketball Association game.
Relatively speaking, the apology was unnecessary.
“I remember after Connor appeared during the first intermission, one of the guys from CCTV said, ‘I’m really sorry, we probably only had about six or eight million viewers,’ ” said BioSteel founder Matt Nichol. “We were like, ‘Oh my God, are you serious?’ It’s crazy to think as the popularity grows what the potential is.”
The potential of China as a hockey market is why the Olympic decision, when it comes to the NHL, is a difficult one.
From covering player insurance fees and travel costs to disrupting the league schedule and a time difference that will make viewing difficult for North Americans, there are not a lot of reasons why the NHL would want to participate in the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. Perhaps the biggest — maybe only — reason for sending players is that the 2022 Olympics are being held in Beijing.
A decision on PyeongChang is expected next month. And, according to International Ice Hockey Federation president René Fasel, the result could affect the next two Winter Olympics.
“It’s not about playing in the more interesting place to play,” Fasel told Postmedia earlier this year. “To be consistent and to be credible, they should also come to 2018 … not having the pros would definitely impact the value of the Winter Games.”
Skipping the 2018 Olympics in South Korea, where the population is about 50 million, is one thing. But missing out on all China has to offer is another.
With a population that exceeds 1.36 billion and an economy that is second only to the United States, China’s potential as a hockey market is huge. And when you consider that 38.6 million tuned in to watch this year’s NBA All-Star Game on CCTV-5, it’s also largely untapped.
“I think the NHL should look at the Asian market — not just China, but South Korea, too,” said Longmou Li, a hockey colour commentator for CCTV. “Japan right now is competing for 2026, so if the NHL can use those three Olympics, they can get 300 million fans, at least. It’s going to be huge. I think the NHL target in 10 to 15 years should be to have 100 million fans.”
Consider this: 842 million people watched at least one minute of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, according to CSM Media Research. For the NHL, which is debating whether to participate in the 2022 Olympics, that’s a lot of eyeballs that could be watching its best players. “China’s a very big country,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told Postmedia. “There seems to be a growing interest in hockey, partly I suppose because they’re hosting the Olympics in 2022. I think there’s a great opportunity to grow the game there.”
While the NBA has been in China for more than 30 years and the KHL expanded to China with a team that plays in Beijing and Shanghai this season, the NHL has been fashionably late to the party.
There is talk of the Vancouver Canucks and Los Angeles Kings playing an exhibition game in Beijing’s 18,000-seat arena next year and CCTV-5, which broadcasts 400 NBA games for free, is trying to increase the NHL’s minuscule coverage, which is four games per week on the specialty channel CCTV-5+ — China’s version of TSN2, according to Li. But as one NHL team executive said, “we’ve only put one foot in the pool” and at this point the league does not seem ready to jump right in.
“What’s the NHL doing?” asked Bauer equipment distributor Geoff LeCren, who was born in New Zealand but moved to China in 1998. “I’m hearing noises for a long time that the NHL is interested, but I’m not seeing that the NHL is doing anything. They might have sent teams over there to fly the flag and do a little kiddies camp here and there. Individual franchises have done that. But that’s not doing anything for hockey in China.
“The KHL already has the jump on them. They have a franchise in Beijing and a junior team is coming next year. Czechoslovakia is in there with coaches posted in Beijing helping the Beijing Hockey Association’s rep team. But what’s the NHL doing?”
The NBA’s relationship with China might have taken off after Yao Ming was drafted first overall in 2002, but it began when the 7-foot-6 giant was just a toddler. In 1987, then-commissioner David Stern orchestrated a deal where he licensed games live to CCTV for free. It was a chance to introduce China to basketball and ensure that those fans chose the NBA over other leagues.
It was a slow-going process. It was not until 2004, when Yao was already established as a future Hall of Fame star, when the NBA held pre-season games in China. The NBA established its China offices four years later.
In other words, the NBA did not jump in with two feet. It started with one foot in the water and waited until the market was primed and ready, perhaps relying on the star power of Yao Ming, before things really took off. The NHL appears to be taking a similar approach.
“Gary (Bettman) is right when he says he wants to go to China,” said Fasel. “The NBA is there and Gary comes from basketball. He’s not stupid.”
While the search for hockey’s Yao Ming is on — New York Islanders prospect Andong (Misha) Song became in 2015 the first Chinese-born player drafted to the NHL and 18-year-old Rudi Ying is playing for the Kunlun Red Star in the KHL this season — most believe the Olympics could be the spark that causes the NHL to really take China seriously. Even then, it’s going to take time and a leap of faith to create a market where there currently isn’t one.
“Do I see the NHL making millions of dollars in China in the next 10 years?” said Beijingborn Bo Hu, the director of China Strategy and Business Development with the Wasserman Media Group. “To be honest, I don’t. But that’s not to say there’s not a market for the NHL or a long-term vision for it. The NBA went there in 1984 but didn’t set up an official office in China until 2008, so these things take time. But with the NHL now broadcasting games in China and creating a partnership with CCTV that will start after the 2022 Olympics, it’s coming.”
Potential is one thing. But right now, there are 1,100 registered hockey players in China according to the IIHF, fewer than half of which are men. Those aren’t great numbers. The women’s national team is ranked 16th in the world, but the men are 37th, lagging behind warm-climate countries such as Mexico and Australia.
Attendance for the Kunlun Red Star has so far been a mixed bag for a playoff-bound team that is in its honeymoon phase. The two games in Beijing have averaged more than 8,000 fans each, but as little as 550 fans have come out for the games in Shanghai, which is not considered as big of a hockey city, and the audience for games on CCTV is less than one million — “even though they are on prime time,” said Li.
Added Saskatchewan-born Sean Collins, a former NHL defenceman who is playing for the Red Star. “It’s very exciting. There’s a few Chinese players on our team and you can see the excitement.”
However limited, the fear is the KHL is already getting its hooks into Chinese hockey fans.
Prior to joining Wasserman earlier this year, Hu spent the previous five years heading up Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment’s Chinese Business Ventures. When he started at MLSE in 2011, there was no presence in China. Today, the team has a Weibo social media account, several partnerships with Chinese companies and has even played one game with all-Chinese ads on the dasher boards. It’s baby steps, said Hu. “Obviously, the NBA has this huge office in China — they have over 200 employees — and all these development programs. It’s much, much further along than hockey,” said Hu. “I always say, of the four major leagues, the NHL is the only one that doesn’t have an office here. With the 2022 Olympics coming and the fever of growing the game of hockey, I think it would be smart for the NHL to start developing this side of the world. There’s obviously a huge market here.”
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I think there’s a great opportunity to grow the game there.