News from Lausanne last week that the International Hockey Federation had signed a ten-year deal with a company that is going to deliver digital media solutions and a “ground-breaking fan engagement service,” was no doubt music to many hockey fans ears.
As covered in Feeling the Pinch the International Hockey Federation (FIH) like many other sports had been dealt a severe body blow by the halt to their flagship competition the FIH Pro League and the cancellation of the Tokyo Olympic Games. Money problems were all too real and many around the globe were concerned.
This news which is believed to be worth a great deal of money to the sport is a real boost. It is also a welcome relief that a new sponsor or partner has been found. What is more amazing is that the deal has been signed during these uncertain global times, so credit to those who managed to pull that off. To have NAGRA sign a ten-year deal is in itself quite an achievement.
However it has many within the sport and outside now watching with great interest.
Why?
The main reason is because fans have witnessed previous long-term partnerships end in divorce. They have also seen the television product regress in terms of quality. However most important of all they have had promises made as to what these agreements will deliver time and again, and have been left disappointed.
In 2014 with much fanfare it was announced that the FIH and Star Sports had signed an eight-year broadcast deal that would see Start Sports “broadcast key FIH events both in India and throughout the world from January 2015 to December 2022.” Part of the deal was that “the world sport body will look to host a major event in India each year.”
This deal was reported as being worth $250million. Although despite what many believed, much of that money was offset in Production costs. Even so, the negotiation of such an agreement allegedly resulted in some hefty bonuses being paid.
It was a deal that was going to lift the sport of hockey to another level. At the time then CEO Kelly Fairweather told Inside The Games, “We are really looking forward to sitting down with STAR to plan hockey’s on-screen future. We will explore the use of on-screen graphics, split screens, different cameras and new angles – wouldn’t it be great to see the game from a player’s perspective for instance? The introduction of heart rate monitors on goalkeepers coupled with keeper cams is something we would love to see. Our focus will be on youth appeal and accessibility to newcomers whilst retaining and pleasing our dedicated fan base.”
Fairweather went on to explain that the belief was that “when people have a good experience of watching hockey they will also be inspired to play.”
Despite Star Sports pulling out all the stops with their coverage of the Hockey India League, using 18 cameras, double what had been used previously the viewing figures were not there, and so production costs were cut and camera numbers reduced. Fairweather’s vision was never realised.
By 2017 the FIH opted to withdraw from the agreement and buy back the rights that they had sold to Star Sports. Star had been contracted to sell international media rights for FIH events in all territories worldwide, except Argentina, and it was believed that this had not happened to the level that the FIH had hoped, and the extra coverage they had thought that they would receive had not eventuated.
Fairweather had by then left the FIH and his replacement Jason McCracken advised “We have negotiated a deal to buy our rights back. We are in the market to sell, and we are talking to a couple of potential partners, the big agencies, on that.”
The message was that the sport’s television rights were now more valuable than when the “Game-changer” Star India contract was first agreed. The reason for this belief was that the Pro League was going to offer broadcasters ten times the number of international matches normally played.
The Pro League did indeed bring big offers to the table, and from big companies. Companies such as ESPN and Infront Media sat around the table with the FIH. As did Sir Keith Mills, deputy chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, company Origin.
All of these companies were offering vast sums of money, and it is believed two out of the three were prepared to pick up all of the production costs.
Origin wanted to take ownership of the Pro League. They would handle the production costs and split profits with the FIH. They expected a profit to be achievable by the year 2021. They would have carried all the costs, and the FIH would have had none.
Infront and ESPN were putting more money on the table and wanted a bigger slice of the pie, and over a longer period of time. Which makes sense, as they wanted to have time to see a return on their investment in the sport.
The Board of the FIH knocked back all three proposals. Why?
Only those who were sat around the table at the time can answer that; a look at the minutes may also reveal the answers, especially who was in favour and who wasn’t.
It is believed that the reason that these offers were rejected was because the FIH was not prepared to relinquish control. Was that a wise move?
In light of this it was therefore interesting to read in the wake of the publication of the FIH’s accounts for 2018 a notification that said that TV production costs linked to the Pro League had been “underestimated,” while related broadcasting revenues had been “overestimated.” So were the Board equipped to make informed decisions for the good of the game in the long term? How could they get it so wrong?
The same report shows no income from the Pro League, which is odd as surely there must have been some money coming in from the competition? The other noticeable increases in cost to the FIH were those of corporate expenses and office expenses.
Prior to the FIH Pro League starting up there was the issue of an agreement between Star and the FIH that was raised by the Pro League Management Panel in February 2018. This was in relation to an alleged condition of Star Sports signing on as a broadcast partner for the Pro League being that Pakistan was also in the competition with India. (Looking for Answers) It is believed that an official reply to that letter was never received.
However a quick check of the timeline and the dates tend to back up the concerns of those who wrote the letter. The Pro League teams were decided at the Executive Board meeting on the 8th June and announced on 11 June 2017 by then CEO Jason McCracken. Yet on 11th May the FIH announced that they had “held constructive discussions” with Star Sports. Then on 24th of May Jason McCracken confirmed that an agreement had been reached with Star Sports “as the FIH’s media broadcast partner in the India region for the home and away cycle.”
Demands for an investigation came to naught. The reason for this is believed to be that the selection process for the Pro League saw commercial aspects superseding the performance elements.
At the FIH Congress two years ago FIH.Live was announced. This was to be an internet platform available to all national associations for them to produce and stream their competitions and matches, with users able to share content on social media and follow their favourite countries, domestic competitions, clubs, individual teams and players. It was launched in January 2019, in partnership with MyCujoo, the Netherlands-based streaming platform.
The trouble was MyCujoo did not have the hardware to back up the service, and once a certain number of viewers arrived on the FIH Live portal the game would buffer. Geo-blocking of games was another major issue. National Associations also never supported the platform sufficiently.
The deal with MyCujoo was a five-year partnership. Like many before it has come to an end prematurely by mutual agreement. It lasted just over a year. Current CEO Thierry Weil was complimentary towards MyCujoo as he discussed the new partner to come on-board, NAGRA, the Kudelski Group-owned company assigned to create a revamped over-the-top offering and integrated digital channels.
Mr Weil told Sportcal, “This is not just an OTT platform, it will be complete integration with an app and new website. There will be a complete revamping, with a new look, new name.”
This partnership we have been told will be a ten-year one. The new platform it is believed will be free to use to begin with, however it will be evolving into a paid, premium-service that is expected to be rolled out once it is firmly established. If that is the case pricing will be crucial. So too will the quality of the broadcast, as well as the number of fans using it to begin with.
The figures that NAGRA will be expecting will no doubt be high with the FIH boasting of two billion fans and 30 million of those being active participants. For the partnership to last ten years it will be essential that fans globally buy into this service.
Current CEO Thierry Weil was quoted as saying on Sports Video Group News “You have to get in contact with fans to better understand them. We know the individual clubs, but with two billion fans it would be great just to know half of them. And the way to do that is with virtual and digital content that works in parallel with broadcasters.”
There is no doubt that he is right, but it will be crucial that the FIH drive those fans to this new platform in order to gain that information.
It looks on the surface a good deal for the sport, but to many it is a very big gamble. Weil’s two predecessors, one who set up the Star deal, the other who boasted when he withdrew from that deal what the rights were worth, had both left before the effects of those decisions were realised.
Thierry Weil told Sportcal “What we have seen with our current OTT is that whenever a Pro League game was played we had a lot of fans watching from countries where we don’t even have a hockey federation.” He went on to say, “Quite often in the participating Pro League countries, the broadcasters are showing the home team games but not the game from other nations, and so in a league system fans are interested to watch these games also. The learnings we got from this is why the MyCujoo project was so important for us, to collect all this data.” Those games from other nations were frequently geo-blocked on FIH.Live as the host Broadcaster still owned the rights to air those games within 24 hours. So this issue will have to be overcome.
One risk is that many existing broadcasters who see little financial return from the sport could now walk away. They will say ‘you have your own platform you don’t need us.’ The reason many do not show those other games is they do not believe that interest warrants the game being aired. There has been little or nothing to back up the League, by way of a magazine show or good coverage in the local media. Misinformation in the media has also not helped. It is questionable as to whether there was ever a media or marketing plan to support the competition. As a result viewing figures have not grown.
Even on an OTT platform without targeted and effective marketing and media coverage to attract viewers it will be a struggle to pull in viewers in the numbers that no doubt NAGRA are expecting. .
Experts in this field have said that existing fans will find the platforms on which games are played, but you do not pull in new fans. That is why you need to have a mix of old fashioned television and Internet based broadcasts; One to pull fans in and one for the already committed fans.
The other risk is if those fans do not come across will NAGRA continue to invest in the technology and the sport? NAGRA has seen that the tier one sports already have their own OTT platforms and have understandably pitched this to the sports that cannot afford to embark on that themselves.
Jean-Luc Jezouin, senior vice-president, sales development told Sportcal “This is a white label service. We run the tech, the platform, the business, the daily operations. We are starting to go to the market with that.” So they are going to expect their service to be backed up by strong marketing to engage fans and drive them to their platform.
As he went on to say “On the FIH platform, you have to provide content that isn’t live, so replays, highlights, archives, news articles interviews, coaching tips, sports data, scores, fixtures, stats, head-to-head. All this content will drive fans to the app on a daily basis.”
It will, but who is going to create it? If the viewer numbers are not there when do you cut back on the time invested in producing that content? It takes time and money to produce quality content and to have it done properly. That has been shown to be abundantly clear during these current times. It would be good if everyone understood the rules for a start. (When Is A Win Not A Win?)
This is not like the movies and Field of Dreams, ‘build it and they will come.’ For people to head to the “Home of Hockey,” as it is being billed, there is going to need to be a great deal of promotion to support it. Then comes the question which project needs that promotional money more, the actual events or the platform?
While it appears to be a good move for the sport, time will tell. Certainly many in the sport hope that it is. The money is definitely welcome.
