In Season 2, PWHL Boosts Regular-Season Games 25%, Refines Operations and Branding

League stability and accessibility across the U.S. and Canada are major goals

Having completed a successful inaugural season a year ago, the six-team Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) has returned for its sophomore campaign and continues to enhance its game operations and broadcast product as well as adding new league elements, including team logos and branding.

Priorities for season two, which started in November, include amplifying the “stability of the league” and making games accessible to fans throughout North America.

“As a startup league,” says Jeremy Langer, VP, broadcast and scheduling, PWHL, “we wanted to ensure that we articulate to our fans, our sponsors, our partners that we’re not going anywhere.” Noting that such teams as the Montréal Victoire and Toronto Sceptres have moved to larger arenas to meet fan demand and interest, he adds, “We are here to stay.”

In an similar arrangement to the inaugural season’s, Dome Productions handles Canada-based game-day productions for the PWHL and distributes games to the league’s media partners, and Raycom Sports manages U.S. games.

TSN, RDS, and CBC/Radio-Canada have returned as media partners in Canada. The PWHL has integrated Prime Video into its portfolio of media-rights partners, which means that PWHL games aren’t available on YouTube in Canada this season. Returning local-media partners for the U.S. include MSG Networks for the New York Sirens and NESN for the Boston Fleet.

“We’re at that really interesting phase of how to manage accessibility with financial stability,” says Langer. “That’s a trade-off that leagues have to make. The enterprise has to make money. Players have to earn a living wage. It costs a lot of money to fund the enterprise, and, when you give your product away on a free streaming site, it’s got to have measurable outcomes that are important for the business. That’s outreach. Hopefully, merchandise sales come with that. Awareness is critically important. How we value those in the different markets becomes a trade-off.”

When it comes to graphics and visually appealing creative, Langer emphasizes the importance of investing in a robust package, highlighting what the league’s marketing team has accomplished in introducing new team names, logos, and overall branding. “We are leaning into how we can make sure we make our players as accessible as possible.”

He notes that those key areas were a focus during production planning for the current campaign. “Our graphics package this year is heavy on animations with the logos and heavy on implementation of players’ faces wherever we can do it: hero shots, faces on lower thirds, full-page graphics. We’re mindful that our players play in a league where they have helmets on the whole time and it’s hard to see their faces. The more we can do when we have our most engaged audience to make sure their faces are seen and they become relatable, that’s going to be important for all the other tentacles of the operation.

“The visual representation of the information we put on-screen,” he continues, “is critical to the impression that people form about legitimacy.”

New York–based agency GameDay Creative returned to build the league’s graphics this season. The PWHL provided 2D creative to the agency once teams’ new logos and branding had been publicly revealed. Graphics are being used not only for broadcast but for in-arena, too.

Meanwhile, the league increased the number of regular-season games from 72 to 90, a 25% jump, which means that the cost increased across the entire enterprise. When asked about the camera and audio complement for 2025, Langer says the league has to be thoughtful about how it invests in production because of the larger number of games.

“[We are] making sure the quality of our games meets a minimum standard that fans expect and not putting as much focus on some of the innovative, unique kinds of things,” he says, noting, “The minimum standard this year versus last year should be the same.”

During year two, Langer adds, the PWHL has integrated other league departments into the broadcast conversation to ensure a more streamlined process of presenting the overall game product. That includes deploying library assets, a digital database, and a stats provider “to take a more holistic approach” to broadcast.

“We’re continuing to raise expectations and deliver on them,” he says. “It’s a rewarding feeling for people to expect us to be something and then deliver on that, to meet people’s expectations and exceed them in other ways.”