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First, the bad news.
The all-time attendance record for a women’s hockey game — set April 21, 2024 when 21,105 fans attended a Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) game between Toronto and Montreal — is unlikely to be broken this upcoming season.
“The 21,000 in Bell Center [in Montreal] will not be broken until we do an outdoor game,” said Amy Scheer, senior vice president of business operations for the PWHL. “Because that is the largest venue in North America.”
For the PWHL — which had one of the most successful opening season launches in recent memory, including winning “Breakthrough of the Year” by Sports Business Journal — the bad news is also kind of good news. They can’t set more attendance records for indoor hockey because bigger venues do not exist.
While the league, which is backed by Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and Billie Jean King, won’t be doing outdoor games this season, it will be hosting nine neutral-site regular season games across the United States and Canada. Dubbed the Takeover Tour, the games will be held in three cities in Canada that do not currently host teams, and six in the United States, including Raleigh, Buffalo and Detroit. The cities will help expose more fans to PWHL hockey, and provide the league with critical information for testing potential markets for future expansion.
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“We’re only in six markets and we need to continue to build our audience. We need to have people watch our product live,” Scheer said in an interview in Toronto, where the league has experienced breakneck growth. “There’s a wide swath of fans that are watching and engaging with our sport.”
Building on last year’s wins is the name of the game in the second season of the PWHL, which will feature an expanded 30-game regular season among six teams. There has also been an influx of international talent, which should enhance the quality of play across the league. The biggest change this year has been both the names on the jerseys and the…
Source link : https://www.espn.com/olympics/hockey/story/_/id/42609958/pwhl-preview-second-season-professional-women-hockey-league
Author : Michele Steele
Publish date : 2024-11-26 18:49:00
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