Seven League is excited to announce that we are working with the National Hockey League (NHL) to help them grow their sport in Europe.
Seven League will be running bespoke, localised channels on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter for the NHL in German, Finnish, Czech and Swedish during the 2019/20 season.
At the weekend the Buffalo Sabres and Tampa Bay Lightning played two sell-out regular-season games in Sweden - and Seven League was at the arena in Stockholm to run local-language social media channels and manage influencers to help expand the reach of the sport.
There are over 220 European players playing in the NHL including over 80 from Sweden and Lightning forward and 2019 Hart Trophy winner for NHL MVP, Nikita Kuchekov, from Russia.
By using local social managers in key European markets, the NHL and Seven League will be able to provide tailor-made content for fans, delivered in their time zone and in their language.
There will be a big focus on championing European players, increasing video output and using creative social formats to engage and build a long-term loyal fanbase.
One of Seven League’s first tasks was to launch @NHLEurope on Instagram. We’ve seen a fantastic response from fans with the page already amassing more than 17,000 fans.
You can follow these channels through the links below:
Instagram: @NHLEurope
Facebook: NHL (geo-posting in local language)
At Seven League, we’ve preached the virtues of localised content for some time. In a 2016 blog, Digital Localisation: Go Deep, or Go Home, we talked about how sports organisations should embrace local markets, and avoid a robotic-translation approach.
In the three years since that post, we’ve worked with many sports rights-holders to create customised local approaches to grow international markets.
We’re proud to add another major sports property to our growing list of clients, which includes the likes of FC Barcelona, Juventus, Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City, Newcastle United, Everton, and more, alongside our work with federations, governing bodies and leagues such as FIFA, UEFA, the NBA, the NFL, the FA and the Premier League.
The NHL Global Series games were a great success and we’re looking forward to working with the NHL through the rest of the 2019/20 season, culminating in the 2020 Stanley Cup Final in June.
“The NHL is always striving to better communicate with our fan base in Europe,” said Jaka Lednik, NHL Group Vice President of International Strategy. “We felt 7L had the vision and experience of how we could put this in practice across social media. Through this partnership, we are already reaping the benefit through fan growth, and increased engagement and content consumption across our core European markets on social.”
Peter Clare, Consulting Partner at Seven League, said: “The NHL is an ambitious, global league with a fantastic opportunity to grow in key northern European markets. We are delighted to partner with them on this journey and to help the use digital channels and localised content to grow the sport.”