NHL Goes After Digital Hockey Fans

In its latest effort to attract more fans, and hopefully more TV viewers, through its digital media strategy, the National Hockey League is introducing new mobile applications for streaming live hockey content on phones and tablet devices like the iPad. The NHL, with Verizon Wireless and Bell Mobility, is offering three versions of its NHL GameCenter apps on an array of operating systems and smartphones, including Google Android, BlackBerry, iPhone and Nokia handsets. The free version of the app has team and player stats and game photos. The next level costs $19.99 for the season and includes video highlights and live radio; the premium version is $79.99 and includes live video broadcasts. An app optimized for the iPad that offers video of live hockey games is currently in production and should be available by the holiday season, according to a spokesman for the NHL. The League is also developing its NHL GameCenter apps for other tablets such as the Blackberry Playbook and the Samsung Galaxy Tab. The NHL’s premium web-version of GameCenter costs $19.95 per month and streams approximately 1,000 of the league’s 1,200 games per season (all games that are not national exclusives on Versus or NBC, the league’s partner television networks). The GameCenter apps were previously available on mobile devices in Europe, and the league expects its subscriber base, which includes users of both paid and free apps, to reach half a million subscribers worldwide this week. The NHL is not the only sports league to turn to mobile distribution of its game content as part of a broader strategy. The National Basketball Association, for example, is also working on an iPad app that will be available in the coming weeks. Consumers will have to purchase the NBA’s League Pass for broadband, which costs $119 to $189 a year, to use the free iPad application. But the NHL is the league most in need of an overall viewership boost in the U.S., and the verdict is still out on whether TV content through mobile apps will bring more TV viewers. “People are cautiously optimistic about the engagement part of mobile apps for TV content, but so far those apps aren’t drawing new viewers in,” says James McQuivey, media and technology analyst for Forrester, Inc. Many people who view online video are already watching the shows on television, McQuivey says: “It’s proving to be the case with online video that viewers are people that are already in love with the TV programming, so it’s not necessarily showing new viewers. That could be the same for apps.” Despite having ended last season with its highest TV ratings in years, the NHL attracts fewer U.S. eyeballs than other pro sports. This year’s Stanley Cup finals series games averaged just 4.5 million U.S. television viewers, compared to an average of 18.1 million viewers of this year’s NBA Finals games and 19.1 million viewers during last year’s MLB World Series, according to Nielsen Co. “Digital media is a huge marketing tool for us,” says John Collins, chief operating officer of the NHL. “It’s another way for us to not only reach a fan base that we think has a voracious appetite, but also to create an equal amount of momentum in our overall business.” Mr. Collins says the league has generated $330 million dollars in sponsorship and revenue over the past four years. The league’s TV viewers, more than its digital subscribers, will likely carry greater weight in that business as the league enters its final season under its current TV contracts with NBC and Versus and looks to renegotiate. Mr. Collins says that digital is part of that overall strategy, “which is to cast a broad net to fans, and create a path to those fans for advertisers. It all goes back to ensuring hockey is in growth mode.”

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