What this data point says about how the PWHL should approach expansion
The Professional Women's Hockey League has generated a lot of interest in Canada, but this stat shows why the league should be focusing its growth in other regions.
There has been a good amount of buzz here in Canada since the Professional Women’s Hockey League kicked off its second season at the end of November. New team nicknames and jersey designs helped, along with a good showing in Year 1 of the entertainment value this league can offer.
It made me wonder how this excitement was translating to other parts of the world. How much were other counties taking an interest in the league?
The data shows there’s still quite a bit of work to do.
Glimpse is a tool by Google that can monitor and quantify consumer behaviour signals. When you put “PWHL” into the tool, and scroll down to “interest by region” there’s a whole lot of love from Canada with the rest of the world trailing far behind.
If I’m the PWHL, this consumer behaviour is something to take a serious look at, especially as discussions about expanding the league to more cities increases. The Associated Press reported at the end of October that the league was looking to add two teams for next season with upwards of 20 markets being targeted.
It’s great to see so many areas be interested in hosting a women’s professional hockey league team. However, in order for the game’s popularity to grow, it needs to expand south as opposed to East/West (from a Canadian perspective). Not only will this approach help the game’s awareness and popularity in other areas of North America, but there’s simply just more financial backers in the United States.
As the WNBA has experienced since its inception, there’s going to be ups and downs when your league expands. Since the WNBA first launched in 1997, the league went from eight teams, up to 16 at one point, down to 12 and is now working its way back up again with expansion to cities like Toronto.
We’re already seeing that testing out new markets in the U.S. may not be as simple as the what we’ve seen in Canada. Take Buffalo for example. The PWHL announced in mid-November that it was doing a Takeover Tour where nine games would take place this season in mostly NHL arenas. This worked really well in the league’s inaugural season and it’s great to see this tour happening again in 2025. However, the game in Buffalo on Feb. 23 won’t have the full seating of a Sabres game available with the 300 section closed off along with seats behind the penalty box, as pointed out by Ian Kennedy on X:
Growing any business will come with its ups and downs. Sometimes the best way to go about it is starting small. It’s what the PWHL did in its first season, with most of its teams playing in smaller arenas and graduating to bigger ones for this 2024-25 year so long as there was success and it made sense to do so.
I would recommend those doing communications or marketing for NHL teams where these Takeover Tour games are taking place, or businesses already marketing with the NHL franchises in these cities, to jump on board and support the game’s growth. A social media plan to activate towards leading up to, and during these games, will not only improve your own organization/company’s reputation, but also assist the PWHL’s growth in the process.
Testing and trying is the way to go when starting out a business or league. When it comes to selecting destinations for expansion, the PWHL will no doubt be looking at all facets, especially financials, to ensure there’s sustainable room for growth in the cities where it goes. The data is currently showing a need to grow the league’s popularity in the U.S. Putting a team, or two (or three!) in cities south of the border would be a step in the right direction to get the league’s interest level trending upwards.
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Ryan McKenna is one of Canada's top sports communication experts with a powerful track record of aligning organizations to fast moving sports trends. Prior to moving into communications, Ryan was an award-winning journalist with both The Canadian Press, and Sportsnet.
Reach out to Ryan to learn more about key communication strategies in this complex and fast-moving new digital communications age.