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The business of running an Ice Hockey League

The Elite league is the UK’s premier (and only professional) Ice Hockey league. It contains 10 teams from all across the UK. Those teams are from, Belfast, Cardiff, Coventry, Dundee, Fife, Glasgow, Guildford, Manchester, Nottingham and Sheffield.

What type of business is the league?

So what type of business is the league and how is it set up? Well it might not come as a surprise but behind the league is a limited company. This protects the owners of the league in the same way as any other business. Limited companies are in themselves legal entities and small details of the same have to be held on a public record for all to be able to view.

So who owns this company?

Well, this might come as a surprise but… the owners of the company running the Elite league are…

The teams themselves!!!

Yes that’s right, the owners (shareholders) of the Elite League are actually the 10 teams themselves. This is great news as it means that the league is run by those who are directly affected by how well it does. Therefore, all the owners have a real interest in the league doing well and no one team has a greater piece of the pie, than any other.

Profit that the league decides to give to its owners goes directly to helping out the teams in the league.

The negatives of this are however, that any other team wanting to join the league needs to be able to essentially ‘buy in’ to the ownership of the league as well for this system to continue to work. This is a potential barrier to teams joining the league, but also works as safety net. Any team seeking to join the league therefore needs to be financially secure enough to join and contribute to the league.

So what do you think? Good idea, or bad idea?

#growthegame

Yak