Why the NHL is partnering with German soccer giant FC Bayern Munich

MUNICH — In an effort to grow the National Hockey League’s popularity in Germany, the league and soccer giant FC Bayern Munich on Thursday announced a multiyear partnership and four more regular-season NHL games on German soil in coming years.

The NHL will play two regular-season games featuring the Boston Bruins in Munich during the 2027-28 season, plus two more featuring the Edmonton Oilers in Leon Draisaitl’s hometown of Cologne.

Those will follow two games between the Chicago Blackhawks and Ottawa Senators in Düsseldorf this coming December.

The first-of-its-kind partnership between the NHL and Bayern Munich was the product of a six-month negotiation that saw senior leaders from the organizations regularly crisscross the Atlantic to work through the potential for collaboration on co-branding, content, merchandise and whatever else they could think up.

The multiyear partnership with Bayern and additional NHL games come at a time when the league is mounting a concerted push in the German market, and NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly believes his league can learn from the country’s sporting standard-bearer.

“This isn’t just a team,” Daly said. “This is like 60 percent of the people in Germany are Bayern fans.”

There was no template to work from for a strategic alliance between a professional sports league and a club that plays another sport on another continent. That made for an unlikely scene inside Bayern’s headquarters on Thursday morning, when Daly sat alongside Kasper for a news conference conducted concurrently in German and English, then presented him with a replica Stanley Cup and gave way for Bayern star Alphonso Davies to join German-born NHLers Draisaitl and JJ Peterka on stage.

The gathering reinforced the possibilities at hand for the world’s top hockey league and one of soccer’s marquee clubs.

Rouven Kasper, Bayern’s chief marketing officer, is a member of FC Bayern’s board and oversees the club’s national and international marketing and sales. He was drawn to the NHL’s strong following abroad and believes the partnership will allow the team to expand its reach, which it currently pegs at 1.1 billion followers.

“The NHL is one of the biggest leagues in the world, the best hockey league in the world and this is our ambition: We always want to work together only with the best,” Kasper said. “What we have in common is that we are very close with our fans, that the dialogue is strong, that the atmosphere is good, and bringing these synergies together. When we were sitting together discussing (this possibility), it just totally made sense. For the NHL, it’s important coming to Europe, especially to Germany, and we can help them a lot here. And the other way around when it comes to (Bayern going to) the U.S., so I think it completely makes sense.”

On top of the four games announced Thursday, NHL has already committed to bringing more games to Germany for the 2028-29 season, and Daly told reporters that the league may eventually stage an outdoor game in the country, citing the 75,000-seat Allianz Arena, where Bayern Munich plays, as a possibility.

It’s all part of a “full-out effort to connect with the German fanbase,” Daly said. A league-initiated market analysis identified the country of 84 million as having huge potential for NHL growth, and the league’s board of governors recently signed off on a plan that identified Germany as a major priority.

“It’s a very developed economy here,” Daly said. “It’s a great sports market. Big population. All of the things lined up here. Again, I don’t want to say that it didn’t line up in other countries, but it did (here) to the point where we recommended a priority list to the board, and they embraced Germany.”

Viewed in that context, the decision to partner with Bayern Munich made a lot of sense for the NHL.

The club is a behemoth, with 45.2 million Instagram followers compared to the NHL’s 7.3 million, not to mention a trophy case that includes 14 of the last 15 domestic titles and a payroll more than double any of its competitors in Germany. That fact prompted a lighthearted moment during Thursday’s news conference when Davies was asked about salary caps, which the Bundesliga doesn’t feature while the NHL does.

“Obviously I’m happy that there’s no salary cap in football,” said Davies, whose yearly salary can reach 20 million euros ($24 million USD) with bonuses — significantly more than the $14 million Draisaitl commands as one of the NHL’s top stars. “I don’t really know how the salary cap works over there.”

Davies made those comments while sitting in front of a packed room two days before the start of Bayern’s season, with the Super Cup Final set to be played against Dortmund Saturday night.

While he counts Edmonton as his hometown and has been a regular attendee at Oilers games, including during the 2024 Stanley Cup Final, Davies wouldn’t typically find himself discussing hockey with members of the German media on the eve of a new campaign.

However, the hope from both the NHL and Bayern is that their new partnership will make this kind of crossover seem less foreign in the future.

“We both have established fanbases, we both have established business partners,” Daly said. “We want to collaborate and share information with respect to those business partners, and find ways to collaborate and move the business forward.

“Bayern is a world-class brand. It is known worldwide. It’s iconic. It’s unmatched in its credibility and its authenticity in terms of how it creates its fans. We want to learn from that.”

Ultimately, the chance to compare notes and forge new ground is what brought a hockey league and soccer club together.

“This is completely unique,” Kasper said. “Not just for our club. I think you’ve never saw it, that a league like the NHL is cooperating with a club and the other way around. We are both thinking quite innovatively and going new ways.

“This is what you saw today, and it’s just the start.”