Every organization, creator, business, and product strives for organic growth. However, build-it-and-they-will-come approaches are known to not be sustainable methods of growing an audience. The reality is, oftentimes, you need to take a gamble on investing in a community before they’re established.

Don’t worry – there’s no need to sound the alarm. When the data aligns with your vision, your well-executed investment won’t go to waste. If you truly believe in growing a community, they deserve resources. Investments in your people will pay off significantly with the right combination of community potential and effectively distributed resources!

Let’s take a look at a classic example: the Canadian World Junior Championship team. For Canadian hockey fans, the World Junior Championship (WJC) is synonymous with their annual holiday plans. However, this hasn’t always been the case.

Every year, the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) hosts the WJC over the winter holidays. Canada, Sweden, Finland, USA, and other countries assemble a team of their country’s best under-20 hockey players to play in the annual tournament. Many of these players grow to play professional hockey around the world, making this tournament an early showcase for the future of ice hockey.

Though exciting, the WJC hasn’t always received much attention. Many hockey fans couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to this tournament, as the product wasn’t as accessible or desirable as perhaps that of their favorite pro team. In the early 90s, The Sports Network (TSN), a Canadian broadcasting company, purchased the streaming rights for the tournament. It was a low-risk investment with very little excitement around the World Juniors, but TSN identified an intersection where the WJC existed in Canada. 

Canadian hockey teams have some of the most passionate fan bases, from the National Hockey League (NHL) down to the Canadian Hockey League (CHL), with teams like the Western Hockey League’s Brandon Wheat Kings (Brandon, Manitoba: population 70k) and the Quebec Maritimes Junior Hockey League’s Blainville-Boisbriand Armada (Blainville, Quebec: population 56k) becoming hometown staples and drawing large crowds every game. TSN asked themselves: what if we tapped into that pride? We could market the World Juniors to those same hockey fans in a way that, for the first time, unites them instead of pitting them against each other.

A vision for the future of Canada’s World Junior team’s identity was born. 

In hindsight, hockey fans in Canada today can’t imagine a time when the WJC wasn’t a highlight of their holiday season. The best junior talent in their country was playing together; Hockey Canada pulled the superstars out of its own junior leagues, European leagues, and American college leagues to play on the same sheet of ice for the first and only time. What more could you ask for?

TSN understood what national pride could grow out of this unique team structure and slowly started funneling more money into the program. They started by only televising a few games in the tournament, then escalated the coverage over the years. TSN sent more camera crews, broadcasters, and content creators to the tournament to build increasingly more touchpoints for fans watching at home.

Today, the tournament’s kickoff on Boxing Day might as well be Christmas itself. The tournament drew over 100 million viewers in 2021. It continues to receive support as hockey fans unite over this unique intersection of collective sport and national pride.

Community Use Case: Marketing

TSN and Hockey Canada understand the stage in life the Canadian WJC players are at and what their future impact may be. Broadcast and social media channels will feature fun interviews, fan-led Q-and-As, junior league highlights, and sample practice drills to showcase the young talent leading up to throughout the tournament. This helps hockey fans develop an intimate attachment to the players before they become pros, garnering NHL-level support and appreciation in their developmental stages.

Identity

This annual tournament showcases the best the world has to offer and brings a sense of pride to fans. Canadians unite around hockey in any capacity, like watching with friends or ice skating on a frozen pond. This tournament appeals to that collective sense of community Canadian hockey fans crave.

Partnerships

Companies clamour to sponsor the tournament and tap into the attention of millions of Canadians, building on the sense of community this tournament elicits. TSN didn’t have nearly the same degree of unique partnerships when they first acquired the rights as they do now. As businesses have identified how prevalent this tournament has become in the eyes of Canadians, they have found creative ways to get involved. Popular brands often acquire the naming rights of various tournament components, from broadcaster mugs to Player of the Game awards.

Engagement

Hockey Canada and TSN generate plenty of engagement throughout the tournament by tapping into what WJC fans are looking for. Alumni features are beloved by all, utilizing tournament-participants-turned-NHL-superstars to help promote the tournament with interviews, guest appearances, or social media coverage. This helps pull hockey fans’ attention to the WJC (if it isn’t already there) and adds a layer of excitement to the tournament. It reminds fans that one day, these players may very well be the faces of their respective NHL franchises. How exciting will it be to say you knew a player well before their potential was unleashed?

Over the last 30 years, the WJC’s product has remained steadfast. The biggest change it has experienced in Canada is the way it has been promoted to hockey fans. TSN believed the sky was the limit for the tournament. Through marketing and investment, its community of fans has grown beyond many of our wildest dreams.