Heikki Hiltunen’s bold opening could easily be chalked up to mere flirting. However, it is worth listening to him, writes Vesa Parviainen.
The SM league chairman’s proposal for a Europe-wide top ice hockey league came as a surprise.
My first reaction when I interviewed Hiltus was that I had heard this before.
That the “European NHL” hasn’t been tried enough times already and each time it has been found that it just won’t work in practice.
The timing was also surprising, the opening ceremony of the League season last Tuesday in Tampere.
Bringing the future Premier League to the fore takes up the air space of the conversation field just as the approach of the League season is getting into the spotlight from the shadow of the Jokeri and Kiekko-Espoo projects.
However, there is a clear connection.
It explains why Hiltunen brought his vision to the public now.
Heikki Hiltunen plans European ice hockey and the Liiga’s position in it. Jussi Saarinen
The possible expansion of the main series in two years with 1–2 teams forces the League to think about the future just in case. And it cannot plan it alone but together with the union.
When, at the same time, a new big division is underway in the market due to the KHL’s destabilization, Finland and other European hockey countries should also be alert and seize the opportunity.
Indifference could mean sleeping past your happiness.
An NHL with a better understanding of business and operating with greater resources would undoubtedly come and absorb the best players as it has been until now and also fill a commercial market niche.
This can be stated despite the fact that, according to expert Kalervo Kummola, the NHL is not planning its own division in Europe.
However, the NHL brings matches to Europe. Every year, it captures more of the time European hockey fans spend watching the sport – unless Europe does something.
The league and the federation are setting up a working group to outline Suomi-kieko’s series systems, and the result should be available by spring.
It would be sheer stupidity not to take into account the international dimension of the sport in the same context.
When you have the opportunity to build something new and big, it’s worth at least trying.
The European League will not become a challenger or a direct competitor of the NHL even in the foreseeable future, but the counterforce intended by Hiltusen could arise from it.
It would stop the dominance of the NHL and improve the level of the sport. The national teams, like the Lions, would appreciate it.
However, with the reservation that there would still be room for national team activities in the middle stages of the season.
Many will surely point out that international club games in ice hockey are not of interest to the public – you can already see that by glancing at the stands of CHL games.
However, the situation would be completely different if the European League was played with three matches per week throughout the entire season.
That is, it would be the league that the top teams in Finland specifically play.
Then the fans would follow and the foreign opponents would gradually become familiar.
Time will tell if Hiltusen’s opening will be boring as many similar plans have been boring over the years – or if a medium-sized miracle will happen and a brave new European league will start this decade.
Then a contract worth at least EUR 500 million would have been found on the European TV market, as Kummola estimates.
The amount sounds terrible, but according to Kummola, it is not impossible.
The advantage of ice hockey compared to many other sports, from the point of view of the TV product, is that the match program can be built so that games are offered every night.
Football, of course, has a long way to go to gain popularity, and it would not seek a similar contract: for example, the value of the Premier League’s TV contract is an incredible 5.2 billion euros.
There are many possible models for implementing the Euroleague, but the competitiveness of Finnish teams in the player market is a challenge regardless of the format.
Finland is a country with high taxation and high living costs, and even the top clubs in the League have a long way behind the top teams in Switzerland, Sweden and Germany in terms of resources.
The TV money would certainly to some extent even out the differences in the clubs’ ability to pay salaries, and greater visibility in significantly larger markets would bring tougher sponsorship contracts to Finland as well.
The Finnish European champion would still have to wait a long time.
The best Finns in the European leagues would play in Berlin, Bern and Gothenburg just as they played in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Ufa until last season.