Behind the scenes of the men’s ice hockey league, there is a dispute about the distribution of money.
According to Urheilu’s information, Helsinki IFK, Kärpät, Tappara and TPS have submitted a redefinition of the joint revenues of the hockey SM league.
Joint revenues include, among other things, compensations from TV rights and box office revenues from the playoffs from the semifinal stage onward. Each league club receives an estimated 1.5 million euros per year from TV rights.
The proposal of the four major clubs appears in the equivalent of the smaller league clubs. The group of eight clubs has sent a petition to the board and shareholders of SM-liiga Oy at the end of February, opposing the proposal made by HIFK, Tappara, Kärppie and TPS.
– With Tampere’s successful arena project, even with the current income distribution structure, the inequality between the clubs is increasing, which we have been able to see from the financial results of Tampere’s two teams over the past couple of years, the petition states.
It has been done by HPK, Jukurit, JYP, KalPa, KooKoo, Pelicans, SaiPa and Ässät.
– Now, however, four of the League’s clubs are proposing that the differences in income and profitability should be even bigger than what they have become and are becoming in the current structure. In our opinion, this is not in the interest of Finnish league hockey.
The clubs are asking the SM league board to start preparations on “how to best support an interesting, nationally played and sufficiently even series with income distribution, stronger than the current one”.
A league franchise?
According to the view of the eight clubs, “a safe way from competition law to think about revenue distribution and the League’s wide operating model would be to compare our own operations to a franchise business, where each team pays a percentage-based franchise fee to the League for its income stream other than through the League.”
According to the clubs’ proposal, the franchise revenues would be divided equally among the league teams, or would be used for the joint development of the League.
The clubs remind us that “adequacy has been taken care of in the world’s top leagues for a long time and sporting competitiveness has been sought to be secured with luxury tax/salary cap solutions”.
At the same time, it is stated that “several of the solutions are challenging in terms of competition law”, but the SM league board is encouraged to “consider a franchise model that is legally sustainable and used elsewhere in business”.
SM league teams out of the Champions League?
In addition, the letter proposes that the SM league clubs leave the hockey Champions League, i.e. the CHL, as quickly as possible.
– The past 10 years have shown that the CHL is not sufficiently interesting and the CHL will not become an attractive product for the majority of league clubs. The financial burden of the CHL is unreasonable in the budgets of the signatories without any visible real benefit, the clubs write.
– We propose withdrawing from the CHL in its current form at the end of the current contract period, states the initiative signed by eight clubs.