People who are familiar with the agreement claim that the Premier Hockey Federation and the Professional Women’s Hockey Players Association are combining as a result of their agreement to support the creation of the new, single North American club, which is scheduled to debut in January 2024. The announcement was confirmed by the teams on Friday.
Issues about the validity of two competing leagues will be allayed by the move, which will bring the professional ranks of women’s hockey together ahead of what was planned to be the PWHPA slide launch. It also begins with the tranquility of work. A group of PWHPA people, including Olympic Kendall Coyne Schofield, negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that the new group has already established.
The new league, which has not yet been named, did receive financial support from Mark Walter, chief executive of Guggenheim Partners, owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers in MLB and the WNBA, as well as Kimbra, a supporter of PWHPA. PWHPA supporters Billy Jean King, Ilana Kloss, and Dodgers leader Stan Kasten will all serve on the table. The new organization was also formed with the help of PHF rulers Johanna and John Boynton, who are the current owners of four of their businesses.

This new group will have the support and resources it needs to represent the best of women’s hockey, Walter said in a speech.” I have always believed that professional sports should provide the highest levels of effectiveness and business.”
Athletes from both the PWHPA and PHF will be included in the new club. The number of the PHF’s seven current team that will be included in the new object is unknown, but all of its assets will have been incorporated. Both leagues did n’t respond right away to requests for comment. Through a member, attempts to speak with Walter and Kasten were not immediately effective.
The National Women’s Hockey League, then nine years old, was established as a second object procedure in 2015. As the then-NFLHL struggled to establish its business functions, secure reliable broadcast games, and occasionally even paid players, the first four decades of the team’s existence were difficult. ( The CWHL, the NWHL’s Canadian counterpart, which only paid player stipends rather than salaries, encountered similar difficulties and eventually disbanded in 2019 )
Hilary Knight and Coyne Schofield, two Olympic olympians, left the NWHL in 2019 to found their own nonprofit organization as a result.
The PWHPA started out with exhibition matches and finally got monetary help from Billie Jean King Enterprises and Walter, who also owns stakes in Chelsea FC of the Premier League and the NBA’s Lakers, to officially start a club with the help of Deloitte. The upstart company received support from companies like Adidas, Gatorade, and American economic services behemoth Scotiabank as it started getting ready for its debut.
For its part, the PHF recalibrated in 2020. As NBC Sports transitioned from a single-entity model to independently owned teams, management changed and business partners were rapidly added. The salary cap was set to double for 2023–2024 to$ 1.5 million, and PHF owners made a$ 25 million investment in the league in early 2022, including significant year-over-year increases.

Regan Carey, a longstanding USA Hockey executive, took over in 2022. During her first year on the job, she signed business backer Discover to an important extension and solidified an international broadcasting agreement with ESPN that includes TSN’s worldwide distribution in Canada. Now, the TV pact has benefited. On ESPN2, the team’s 2023 Isobel Cup final match saw a 219.4 % increase in popularity year over year.
Both Carey’s position in the new club and the other users of the PHF are unknown. Its team were still tangled up in shared rights organizations for a while. The Montreal Force, Toronto Six, Boston Pride, and Metropolitan Welders are the four franchises now owned by BTM Partners, which is led by the Boyntons. The Buffalo Beauts and Minnesota Whitecaps are owned by NTT Ventures. The single PHF group that does not share ownership is the Connecticut Whale.
The sport wo n’t have to worry about one league cannibating the other, even though there are still some details to sort out. In addition to consolidating corporate partners, the return of major players like Knight and Coyne Schofield to a single professional hockey circuit may help increase spread assessments and game participation.