NHL looks beyond U.S., Canada for league growth

If all goes according to plan for the National Hockey League, its popularity will continue growing well beyond the confines of the countries where its teams are based.

Through events both inside and outside the U.S. and Canada, the NHL believes it can capitalize on the global popularity of the sport of hockey and improve its standing in countries where the league does not yet have as strong of a foothold.

Much of that effort has so far centered on Europe, specifically countries such as Sweden and Finland where hockey is already a popular sport. The first two regular-season games of the 2024-25 season were played in Prague, followed by two more in November in Tampere, Finland, for this year’s NHL Global Series.

All four of the games were sold out, said NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly.

“We think we’re uniquely positioned in hockey, in the NHL, because hockey is such an international sport and we have a strong tradition of high-level players being developed in Europe,” Daly said in an interview with CNBC. 

Executives from several of the teams that played in Europe this year said it was encouraging to see local support for American hockey teams.

“One of the more eye-opening experiences for me was seeing just how many international fans there were and how many Devils fans there were that are truly on a global and world stage,” New Jersey Devils President Jake Reynolds said in an interview. 

The NHL Global Series is not new. The event in its current form started in 2017, with a two-year hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Regular-season games in Europe date back even further, and the NHL has a long history of playing exhibition games against local teams abroad.

The league also hosts fan tours, this year from Aug. 31 to Nov. 2 across Europe, as a way for fans to engage with the NHL through games, prizes and a peek at the coveted Stanley Cup at some of the stops.

In February, the NHL will host its first-ever 4 Nations Face-Off, an international event where league players from Canada, Sweden, Finland and the U.S. will play for their native countries. 

In 2026, NHL players are planning to participate in the Olympics for the first time since 2014. The hope is that increasing exposure for NHL players on a global stage will be a tailwind for the league. 

“They are looking to make the game as global as possible because we operate in a global economy,” said Rick Burton, a professor at Syracuse University and co-author of “Business the NHL Way: Lessons from the Fastest Game on Ice.”

“So you can’t say, ‘Well, this game is only for North Americans.’ It simply isn’t,” Burton said.

Burton also said he would not be surprised to see an NHL team — or a few — launch in Europe in the future.

Daly did not rule out the possibility, but categorized it as a longer-term play if it were to ever happen.

Europe offers an obvious opportunity for NHL growth. Roughly 30% of the league’s players are European, Daly said, which is part of the reason for the warm reception to the Global Series and the strong turnout.

“Sometimes it gets lost how much fun it is,” Florida Panthers general manager Bill Zito said. “It’s really fun to go play hockey over there.”

This season’s Finland games, between the Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers, featured players Aleksander Barkov and Roope Hintz, who are both Finnish. When the New Jersey Devils played the Buffalo Sabres in the Czech Republic, both teams leaned into their past and present Czech players. 

“We brought some really good teams and some good European players back to their home markets,” Daly said.

Taking the NHL’s product outside the U.S. and Canada to grow its audience will give the league more bargaining chips the next time it negotiates media rights, according to Irwin Kishner, a partner at Herrick Feinstein who has advised sports leagues on media rights, stadium financing and many other sports law pieces. 

“The more eyeballs you have, the more valuable the signal can be,” Kishner said. “And it’s more that you can drive on sponsorship, the more that you can pay for players, the richer the league becomes.”

The NHL’s current media rights deal goes through the 2027-28 season, and if recent sports media rights trends continue, the NHL would also be looking at a hefty increase in its contract value. Live sports have been one of the last pieces of appointment viewing holding together traditional pay-TV bundles, meaning media companies have been willing to pay a premium for the rights.

Revenue from the NHL Global Series, as well as most other international events, goes to the league’s hockey-related revenue, according to the collective bargaining agreement, which is split between the league and players.

There are also revenue opportunities at the individual team level through corporate sponsorships.

Dallas Stars President Brad Alberts said he is interested in exploring a partnership with Nokia, which has a large presence in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and is based in Finland. The New Jersey Devils swapped out their typical Prudential helmet decal with Prudential’s international arm, PGIM, for the European games, Reynolds said.

In all the initiatives expanding outside the U.S. and Canada, the NHL and the National Hockey League Players Association work together. 

The two parties are often at opposite ends of the table when negotiating labor contracts, but when it comes to making hockey and the NHL more popular, the organizations are aligned, according to both the NHL and the NHLPA.

“You see it in private sector. When unions and businesses work in the private sector to grow a business, you see a lot of success,” NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh said in an interview.

Despite many of the league’s efforts being focused on Europe, there is plenty of interest in other markets. 

Prior to the 2023 season, the NHL had preseason games between the Los Angeles Kings and the Arizona Coyotes in Australia, the first time the NHL played in the Southern Hemisphere. The Vegas Golden Knights, one of the newer teams in the league, have devoted resources to grow its fan base in Latin America.