European Hockey Club Business Forum Recap – September 29-30, 2019 Berlin, Germany

Every year, in conjunction with the NHL Global Series, the Alliance of European Hockey Clubs, (EHC) hosts the Hockey Business Forum.  We were honored when Szymon Szemberg, EHC Managing Director, and SMWW NHL Draft speaker, invited my wife & business partner, Liz and I to attend. Here is my recap of the event so you can GO GLOBAL or GO HOME for those of you interested in learning more about the growth of hockey on a global scale.

The EHC Forum hosted executives representing 85 ice hockey teams from 13 countries. The Hockey Business Forum kicked off with a welcome lunch at Berlin Mercedes Benz Arena which is across the street from the Berlin Wall. The goal of the event is for Club Presidents, CEOs, GM’s, Sport Directors, Marketing Directors, league and federation executives to learn from one another and from presentations.

Networking began at the first game of the NHL Global Series, the Chicago Blackhawks vs. Eisbären Berlin. “The Berlin Polar Bears” are owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group and have 7 titles in the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (German Ice Hockey League). Germans love their hockey and the fans gave us execs a good show. We were excited to have SMWW Alumni and European hockey scout Jay Dow from Sweden fly in to join us for the game and the forum. I don’t speak German, but I do speak sports and the fans were singing, chatting and cheering a language that is universal! ("Einmal Eisbär, immer Eisbär" means “Once a polar bear, always a polar bear!”)

From a business standpoint, the NHL International game was a good presentation. Mascot merchandise can account for 10% of retail sales. The Berlin Esbar and Tommy Hawk were working as hard as the players. But from a business standpoint, the scary bear costume needs a mascot makeover.

Watch the recap here.

The post-game party at the Mercedes Plaz rooftop bar was hosted by one of our NHL Draft speakers, Meghan Chayka, on behalf of Stathletes, the Hockey Analytics company. NHL Blackhawks Coaches Jeremy Colliton and Marc Crawford stopped by to share a few words.

Monday, the conference sessions were moderated by Paul Romanuk, previously with TSN and Sportsnet. I enjoyed getting to know Paul. He did a fabulous job moderating a full day of back to back panels and speakers.

The sessions opened with Bill Daly, NHL Deputy Commissioner, explaining how the salary cap, introduced after the 2004 Lockout, healed a broken NHL system.  Currently, the NHL salary cap is $81.5 million (€74.5). A lively panel discussion on salary control and revenue sharing followed with:

• NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly
• EHC President & Bern, Switzerland Hockey Club CEO Marc Lüthi
• KHL Vice-President Alexey Krasnov
• IIHF Council Member and German Ice Hockey Association (DEL) President Franz Reindl

This being my first time seeing the Berlin Wall, I was fascinated to hear from East Berlin-born hockey player Sven Felski who shared what growing up as a fan of Eisbaren Berlin hockey club before the wall came down and playing for the club after. “There were only two teams in the league, so you always knew you would finish no lower than second place,’ Felski quipped about the former East German league, often described as the smallest league in the world. November 9^th will mark the 30^th anniversary of the Berlin Wall coming down. I remember it so vividly.

Next up, LA Kings President Luc Robitaille with "How the LA Kings ownership of Eisbaren Berlin" benefits both organizations. They share resources, sales training, scouting, and much more.

This was followed by Euroleague Basketball COO Ed Scott sharing his leagues' financial success and what hockey leagues can learn from basketball’s premier Euro event. Scott shared, “the two sports have a lot in common. We’re both winter sports, we’re both indoor sports, in most of our markets we compete against football, and we have the capability of sharing venues. The relationship of European clubs and FIBA to the NBA is somewhat like that of European clubs, the IIHF and the NHL.

Fadi Naoum, SAP Senior VP, wowed us with his Fan Engagement ideas and Sergey Dobrokhvalov, KHL Marketing and Communications Vice-President shared the KHL high tech data collection system.

Christian Heimes of IX.co spoke about a digital strategy of interacting with customers, using artificial intelligence to personalize advertising. Heimes pointed out that digital sports media is currently growing the most. Digital advertising needs to be personalized and data is the “new currency”. 

Europe’s Coach of the year, Roger Rönnberg, head coach of the Gothenburg, Sweden based team Frölunda Indians shared how coaching starts at the club level and how important the culture of the club.  Coaching has to look at the business side of hockey and run it as cost-effective as possible, the Moneyball of hockey. The Frölunda Indians currently have 19 players under NHL contracts.

The tradeshow included some familiar booths and some new booths.

• Glice Hockey Elite SenseArena
• Wisehockey
• Hockey Development Training System
• Buoy Marketing
• IX.co
• Prosharp
• Spiideo
• SportContract
• Colosseo EAS
• True
• Volkel
• Fjall Raven

I now have a better understanding of the European hockey leagues and their challenges. I know at SMWW we have some solutions whether it is highly trained staff for clubs or resources for busy working professionals to advance their hockey knowledge beyond what they learned from the panels.

Participating in this year’s event just confirms the growth of hockey is on the tip of the iceberg…NPI.

Many thanks to Szymon Szemberg, Managing Director of the Alliance of European Hockey Clubs, that both Liz and I could attend the EHC Hockey Business Forum! Our staff here at SMWW knows how much time, planning and organization go into hosting an event like this, and we appreciate all the hard work. Congrats Team EHC - Efraim Larsson, Leo Girod, Caroline Jonsson, and of course, one of hockey’s most passionate businessmen, Szymon Szemberg.

See a recap of the photos from our conference here.