NHL providing PWHL with knowledge and experience, but not financial support

Players in the new Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) will likely be playing some of their games inside NHL arenas this upcoming season.

There's also a good chance you'll continue to see female players at NHL events like the All-Star Weekend, which will be held next year in Toronto, as the NHL helps market the new league and its stars.

But while the NHL and PWHL have been working together ahead of the league's expected launch in January 2024, NHL executive Susan Cohig confirmed it's not a financial relationship.

"They are operating under a single-entity ownership structure with the funding and support of the Mark Walter group, so they have the financial resources that they need," Cohig, who is the NHL's executive vice president of club business affairs, said in an interview with CBC Sports.

"Really, I think for us, our priority is to help them be successful in the areas where we can work collaboratively with them, and that's all the knowledge and experience we have in operating a professional hockey league."

For years, many thought a professional women's hockey league could only be viable with significant financial backing from the NHL.

That financial heft didn't come to previous women's hockey leagues, including the Canadian Women's Hockey League, which folded in 2019.

But now, funding from the NHL may not be needed to go along with the PWHL's financial backing from billionaire owners, according to Ann Pegoraro, the Lang Chair in Sport Management at the University of Guelph.

"I think the financial support from the NHL is not as critical as it would have been a decade ago or even five years ago," Pegoraro said, pointing to sponsorship deals with companies like Canadian Tire, which signed on as a multi-year partner with the PWHL last month.

"We know that we're seeing return on investment in women's sports in other sports, in soccer in particular, that are showing huge growth in franchise values."

She pointed to the National Women's Soccer League's Angel City FC, which was valued in the neighbourhood of $180 million US earlier this year, with about $31 million in revenue this season, according to reporting from Sportico.

Things changed this past summer when the PHF was sold to the PWHL's investors and shut down, and the PWHL was created from scratch.

"This is one league, all the players playing in one league, and that really is the best way for long-term success," Cohig said when asked about how the NHL's partnership differs from ones with previous leagues.

"That's where the fans know they can find the best players in the world and I think that is the difference here."