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Since joining the National Hockey League (NHL) in 2017, senior evp Kimberly Davis has been committed to attracting, retaining, and developing multicultural audiences for professional hockey.
And she’s striving for a new goal—bringing more women fans and executives into the NHL ranks.
She’s going to tap a reliable playbook that she’s long used to change the perception that hockey is mostly a sport for white men.
“You have to listen to learn,” she told ADWEEK. “Listening to voices and allowing people to bring authenticity to the conversation is the way that we’re going to change a lot of the perceptions and myths that people have around the sport of hockey.”
Those changes, she said, stem from speaking to local communities, leaning into youth participation, and breaking down barriers to the sport, like the cost of equipment and ice time as well as the lack of cultural representation, to foster future generations of NHL players.
One way the league has done this is through NHL Street, a youth street hockey league it created in 2023 for children ages six to sixteen. It is also making progress representation-wise, as it became the first major sports league to air games in American Sign Language (ASL) in 2024.
Last year’s draft class was its most diverse with Black, Indigenous, and Asian players among 12 players of color selected overall. This number is expected to more than double at the 2025 NHL Draft next month.
“We have to be pulling multiple levers at the same time, we can’t be sequential in our efforts to grow this sport,” Davis said on stage at C2 Montréal. “We have to be bold and courageous to do that.”
NHL’s experiential push
As the NHL continues to cater to its diverse fan base, the league has leaned into experiential marketing to reach new and younger audiences.
In 2019, it launched The American Legacy Black Hockey History Tour, a mobile history museum spotlighting the Black community’s contributions to the sport. The league worked alongside Willie O’Ree, the first Black player in the NHL, for the tour, which was a part of its “Hockey is for Everyone” initiative.
Since then, the mobile museum has pivoted into a wider campaign called “United By Hockey,” aiming to educate and raise awareness of diverse changemakers and business leaders within the sport.
“Having the mobile museum in the parking lot of a stadium is going to get people that are [already] coming to the stadium, but what about those new audiences that don’t know anything about hockey?” Davis told ADWEEK after her session.
Looking ahead, the next iteration of the campaign will activate at events like SXSW and will include bespoke activations and merchandise to resonate with local communities.
Welcoming women both on and off the ice
With the uptick in NHL fandom among women, Davis revealed that one of the league’s oversights was not marketing to its women fans earlier on.
“I was shocked when I joined the league seven years ago to learn that, at that time, 37% of our fanbase were female,” she said on stage. “Today it’s 40%, and yet we’ve never had a campaign that spoke to women. That’s going to change.”
Now, Davis remains “focused and intentional” when it comes to marketing to women and creating a pipeline for young girls who are interested in and/or play hockey. The NHL is also a close supporter of the newly created Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), which started in 2023.
Davis is also committed to creating opportunities for women off the ice.
Over the past five years, the NHL has implemented a coaching development program for women seeking front office and hockey operations positions, like skating coaches and medical staff.
“Since we put that program in place, nine women within the first 18 months rose into visible positions as assistant coaches,” she told ADWEEK. “What that showed us was that these women just needed the opportunity to be exposed. If you don’t have allies and sponsors that are helping to navigate your career, you’re only going to go so far in the organization.”
Hiring women, especially women of color, in NHL roles expands diversity and inclusivity while enhancing representation to reach its growing female audience.
“We can’t just paint with a broad stroke and say, ‘women are all coming to our sport,’” she told ADWEEK. “How are we [also] making sure that the environment is welcoming for women of color?”
