SHL, Allsvenskan - Club earnings?

[Kiekkofani]

I have some interest to understand how hockey clubs in terms of revenue are comparable across Europe. Once understanding this picture, it provides additional angle into European Hockey leagues. SHL environment and style is quite comparable to our closed Finnish Liiga so would be nice to learn a bit how SHL and Liiga differs off the ice.

In Finland, we have 15 teams in Liiga and every team operates in formal Limited Company (Ltd, or Aktiebolag) structure. Most teams have one or few majority shareholders but some operates also without a single entity owning over 20% of the shares. As Liiga teams operate in Ltd (Oy in finnish) structure, their financial results are publicly available although in a quite short format.

Liiga teams revenues are in a range 4,5me to 10.5me in the season 17/18. Every Liiga team owns equal part from central organisation, Liiga Oy, which owns the rights (IPR) for Liiga. Liiga Oy signs central Liiga level contracts with sponsors, media rights etc and it's board consist a representative from the every Liiga team (15 members). Liiga Oy distributes centrally earned revenues to Liiga teams after deducting costs needed to run its own central Liiga organisation and probably has built a certain financial buffer just in case. This central Liiga revenue is a major income part for the clubs, they work then additional revenues through local sponsorship, game events etc.

With this very short introduction, I’m keen to learn how SHL and Allsvenskan operate and what type of revenue numbers we are talking about? All comments more than welcome!

Click to read more...

 

[PuckPoise]

I have some interest to understand how hockey clubs in terms of revenue are comparable across Europe. Once understanding this picture, it provides additional angle into European Hockey leagues. SHL environment and style is quite comparable to our closed Finnish Liiga so would be nice to learn a bit how SHL and Liiga differs off the ice.

In Finland, we have 15 teams in Liiga and every team operates in formal Limited Company (Ltd, or Aktiebolag) structure. Most teams have one or few majority shareholders but some operates also without a single entity owning over 20% of the shares. As Liiga teams operate in Ltd (Oy in finnish) structure, their financial results are publicly available although in a quite short format.

Liiga teams revenues are in a range 4,5me to 10.5me in the season 17/18. Every Liiga team owns equal part from central organisation, Liiga Oy, which owns the rights (IPR) for Liiga. Liiga Oy signs central Liiga level contracts with sponsors, media rights etc and it's board consist a representative from the every Liiga team (15 members). Liiga Oy distributes centrally earned revenues to Liiga teams after deducting costs needed to run its own central Liiga organisation and probably has built a certain financial buffer just in case. This central Liiga revenue is a major income part for the clubs, they work then additional revenues through local sponsorship, game events etc.

With this very short introduction, I’m keen to learn how SHL and Allsvenskan operate and what type of revenue numbers we are talking about? All comments more than welcome!

It works in a similar way, the leagues have their central marketing and broadcasting deals and they are shared equally between the clubs. With a new TV deal and betting sponsorship deal the percentage coming from central deals have risen over the last few years and will rise even more, meaning the importance of the average Joe buying a ticket to stand with the fans have gone down. The clubs who have done well financially are generally those owning their own arena and restaurants and all that comes with it while also getting a good deal from their local government on how much they pay off in mortgage or what they had to stretch to get it done in the first place.

Looking at this report (Swedish) from 2017/18 the range of revenue was from €7M to €16M. I'm not good enough with all this stuff to know if that's from all the things the club could be involved in. Some just run the hockey club, some have the club+arena+restaurants/bars and corporate engagements in other ways which will drive revenue.

One major wrinkle for all Swedish teams in any sport is the 51% rule which means the members can never own less than 51% of the votes no matter how the company/club is structured, meaning there's no way around having the support of the majority of the fans/members. This also means that any financial gain a club makes in theory always goes back to improvement of the club and never into an owner's pocket.

 

[Kiekkofani]

Thank you @PuckPoise , your comments and numbers support common understanding, SHL economy is bigger than Finnish Liiga's.

I haven't heard earlier about such 51% rule you explained. This may mean that SHL Hockey clubs are not public companies, i.e. there is no Brynas Ab or Brynas Ltd? Otherwise such a rule could violate standard regulations for the public companies.
In Finland it is rare if a hockey club would pay dividends. However, there are exceptions and i.e. Oulun Karpat has paid dividends to their owners in the recent years. Most clubs are financially also fine, their existence is protected by keeping Liiga closed so there is no relegation nightmare for any of them.

 

[Kiekkofani]

Just a short update, official regular season average attendance per game in 18/19 season is following

1. NLA - Swiss 6,949
2. KHL - Russia 6,397
3. DEL - German 6,215
4. SHL - Sweden 5,828
5. Extraliga - Czech 5,401
6. Liiga - Finland 4,232

This all from IIHF site, link

 

[Bakayoko Ono]

Here's a pretty extensive and recent report with relevant info.

https://www.ey.com/Publication/vwLUAssets/Rapport_Hockey_2018/$FILE/EY-Rapport_Hockey2018.pdf

 

[Kiekkofani]

Thank you @Bakayoko Ono , this is great stuff. Need to work on it with google translator, thank you indeed !

 

[Toro2017]

So, what is going on in swedish club hockey scene? Here aftonbladet apparently tells us that SIHA is about to make a new proposal about promotion/relegation between SHL and HA. If I understand it correctly, 57 club teams in Sweden are against this move and only two teams support the proposal. So can any swedish user tell us more about this situation? Are they going to vote on it or is the union just going to push it through, even if there is basicly no support for it? Or is it already a done deal?

 

[Exarz]

So, what is going on in swedish club hockey scene? Here aftonbladet apparently tells us that SIHA is about to make a new proposal about promotion/relegation between SHL and HA. If I understand it correctly, 57 club teams in Sweden are against this move and only two teams support the proposal. So can any swedish user tell us more about this situation? Are they going to vote on it or is the union just going to push it through, even if there is basicly no support for it? Or is it already a done deal?

The 57 clubs arenot against the direct promition/relegation that is proposed, but the fact that only one team will get promoted/relegated compared to today's two teams that risk facing relegation. The other clubs want two available promotion spots, one being rewarded directly and one being rewarded through a qualification round