Women’s hockey: will the LPHF be a victim of its success? | Economic office

After a dazzlingly successful first season, the players of the Professional Women’s Hockey League are back in action with renewed enthusiasm by the unveiling of team names, logos and new jerseys.

The opening matches were played behind closed doors last Saturday. More than 10,000 spectators flocked to Place Bell, in Laval, for the first clash between the Montreal Victoire and the Ottawa Charge.

In Toronto, there were more than 8,000 people filling the stands of the Coca-Cola Coliseum, the new home of the Scepters. (His previous arena at the Athletic Center Mattamy could only accommodate 2600 people.)

Even when players played matches in much larger arenas in the NHLthey managed to fill the seats. This was particularly the case at the Scotiabank Arena, home of the Maple Leafs of Toronto: 19,285 tickets were sold for this duel between Montreal and Toronto in February.

Yes, marketing is important, rooting is important, and they do it wellsays Richard Legendre, associate director of the Sports Pole of the Management Department at HEC Montréal. The first ingredient in sport remains the quality of the product.

The expert emphasizes that the LPHF did well to launch operations first in six markets extremely interesting – namely Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Boston, New York and Minnesota. Even though the team names and logos had not yet been chosen, there was an immediate sense of professionalism within the new league, notes Richard Legendre.

Frank Pons, director of the International Observatory on Sports Management and dean of the Faculty of Administrative Sciences at Laval University, agrees. According to him, the LPHF has succeeded in developing a sustainable business model. Its predecessors – such as the Canadian Women’s Hockey League and the Premier Hockey Federation – ceased their activities after a few years of existence.

This is something we haven’t seen before: a long-term commitment.

All stakeholders, whether sponsors, broadcasters, fans also, are confident that it is not a league that will disappear next year and that it is a long-term jobhe said.

- television broadcasters, CBC, RDS et TSNas well as the streaming platform Prime Video from Amazon, will present the 90 matches of this second season of the LPHF.

Expansion on the horizon

A sign of its success, the LPHF already says it is evaluating the candidacy of 25 cities with a view to adding two new teams for its third season.

Nine games will also be played on neutral ground over the coming months to gauge the interest and viability of women’s hockey in new markets, including Quebec, Edmonton and Vancouver.

Rather than existing as individual franchises, the league’s teams are always owned by the same owner. This is a group of investors led by the American businessman Mark Walterwhich is also the majority owner of Dodgers from Los Angeles, in the MLBand Sparks from Los Angeles, in the WNBA.

A franchise is more complicated to manage. The League for the moment remains in control, which is not bad, says Frank Pons, of Laval University. There are other leagues that have done this before to have controlled expansion.

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It will also be necessary to retain a clientele which is not necessarily the same as the public of the NHLunderline the two experts. There LPHF However, it would be wrong to think that its audience is predominantly female, underlines Richard Legendre, who knows women’s soccer clubs well.

The customer experience remains central: even though we have the best marketing in the world, it is victory – or the hope of victory – that motivates spectators, explains the expert. If the team starts to lose and we feel that they are no longer in the race, the crowds drop and yet it is the same producthe said.

In the case of Maple Leafs of Toronto and the Montreal Canadiens, although their results over the last three decades have been mixed to say the leastan attraction historical allows them to fill their arenas, specifies Richard Legendre.

It is the exception that proves the rule.

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With information from Marjorie April