The Core Country Marketing Network Group – internally referred to as CCMNG – is a group of national federation sales and marketing people from the top ten floorball countries (FIN, SWE, CZE, SUI, NOR, DEN, SVK, POL, GER, LAT). The goal of this assembly is to increase the visibility of the sport by sharing information and success cases, discussing sales topics and organising brain storming sessions.
In its latest meeting in March the discussion revolved obviously around Covid-19 and how this had affected the commercial side of the federations. In pre-pandemic times the group convened twice a year for whole day sessions. As this, due to the circumstances, has also become a virtual meeting it has been restructured as four shorter sessions per year. Despite the challenging times there were also positive topics to report with e.g. new collaborations.
- Extended visibility for leagues (also outside their borders):
- The Finnish F-Liiga is also broadcast in Czech Republic, Slovakia, Latvia and cooperates with a Norwegian floorball media.
- The major partnership between Český florbal and Livesport with big financial impact and assurance of quality content of the league.
- TV agreement between Floorball Danmark and SPORT LIVE
- Strong indications that TV visibility in Norway will also increase in the close future
- Already before the pandemic the Swedish Super League has been accessible via online subscription.
- Unique fashion brand collaboration between the F-Liiga x Billebeino to aid teams in difficult times.
In the past many sponsorship stories have been shared and one of the most noteworthy is the extensive and successful collaboration between the Swedish Floorball Federation and recycling entity Pantamera. In addition the federations have also described good examples how social media has been harnessed for marketing the World Floorball Championships and to promote ticket sales.
The CCMNG is chaired by an appointed person of the IFF Central Board, currently the Swiss representative Mr Jörg Beer. The operative preparations and practicalities in the meetings are run by the IFF Sales Coordinator Tero Kalsta.
The next CCMNG meeting will be held 20th of May with plans to have small working group sessions to discuss at least the use of streaming platforms and advantages of collaboration platforms (e.g. Slack, Google Docs, etc.)
