Why crowds are flocking to the National Hockey League

This story was produced by our colleagues at the BBC.

It’s game night in Toronto — where interest in ice hockey is being driven by new teams, new technology and new fans.

Selena Gonsalves got into the sport through her support of the women’s league. “I’ve definitely started getting more into the men’s league because of that,” she said.

North America’s National Hockey League, or NHL, plays its games across the U.S. and Canada, and it’s enjoying a burst of interest, helped by themed nights with a focus on diversity and inclusion.

“I got my pride socks on,” Gonsalves said. “I think it’s absolutely great. Queer people have always been in sports, and I feel like games like this really bring out the energy and the excitement for that. Everyone’s welcome.”

The league is breaking records when it comes to viewers and revenue. It took in an estimated $6.2 billion last season, with 22.5 million fans filling arenas and new TV deals making it the most-watched season in 30 years.

It’s come a long way since the dog days of COVID-19, which led to the suspension of a season. Nick Eaves, chief operating officer of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, was at the sharp end.

“Every one of our revenue sources dried up — no ticketing revenue, no food and beverage revenue,” he said. “It was a terrible couple of years of no revenue being generated and lost time.”

It was a bad time for the league’s newest entrant: the Seattle Kraken. Chief Marketing Officer Katie Townsend said the team and the league have come a long way since then. “I feel incredibly proud of the brand that we launched.”

“We have a female assistant general manager, Alexandra Mandrycky, who was actually the first member of our hockey ops team. And now really at the kind of forefront of this is Jessica Campbell, one of our assistant coaches — who is the first female coach, but coaching behind the bench for an NHL team,” she added. “It’s important that people see people who look like them within the world of hockey. It’s important for the growth of the fan base.”

That’s something 22-year-old superfan Selena Gonsalves agreed with. “I think it’s Seattle that has their first woman coach in history, and I think that’s really big. That’s really showing the world that women are part of the game.”

Ann Pegoraro, chair in sport management at the University of Guelph in Canada, believes the broader fan base translates into greater financial firepower.

“I think that a lot of the new money coming into sport has to do with probably the increasing ability of the NHL to demonstrate a diverse audience, both demographically in terms of age and demographically in terms of racial makeup and gender,” she noted. “So we’ve got several different factors, I think, that have all come together to bring a booming business back to the NHL.”