By The Obnews Editorial Team
Field hockey possesses almost every ingredient needed to become a major global sports business.
It has tens of millions of participants, more than a century of Olympic history, powerful national rivalries and deeply established audiences across India, Pakistan, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and other countries.
The modern game is fast, physical and highly skilled. Players sprint repeatedly, substitutions occur throughout the match, attacks can move from one end of the field to the other within seconds, and penalty corners produce some of the most dramatic moments in international sport.
Yet field hockey remains commercially smaller than its participation, history and geographic reach would suggest.
Its problem is not that people do not play it. Its problem is that the sport has repeatedly failed to convert participation into a dependable entertainment industry.
The International Hockey Federation estimates that more than 30 million people participate in hockey around the world.
That figure should create an enormous commercial foundation. Every player can potentially become a viewer, ticket buyer, equipment customer, subscriber or supporter of a local club.
The geographic footprint is also unusually strong. Field hockey is not dependent on one country or continent.
India and Pakistan have produced some of the greatest teams and players in the sport’s history. The Netherlands has built a powerful club culture and consistently successful national teams. Germany, Belgium and Britain remain major forces. Australia and New Zealand have strong participation systems, while Argentina has become one of the leading countries in the women’s game.
These are not isolated pockets of interest. Together, they represent hundreds of millions of potential fans across large media and consumer markets.
In almost any other industry, a global base of this size would produce major sponsorship agreements, valuable television rights, famous franchises and internationally recognized athletes.
Field hockey has produced some of those things, but not at the scale its popularity should support.
Field hockey should work well in an era of short attention spans and digital highlights.
There is no offside rule restricting attacking movement. Teams can make rolling substitutions, allowing coaches to maintain a high pace. Elite matches are divided into four quarters, creating regular breaks that can be used for advertising, analysis and entertainment.
The ball can travel at extraordinary speeds, particularly during penalty corners and powerful shots. Skilled players combine close control, aerial passes, deflections and rapid counterattacks in ways that can produce spectacular video clips.
Unlike some traditional sports, hockey does not need to be dramatically shortened to appeal to younger audiences. The standard international format already produces one hour of concentrated playing time.
The sport should therefore be ideal for television, streaming services, social media and mobile viewing.
The difficulty has been presenting that product properly.
For decades, field hockey had a serious broadcasting problem.
The ball was small, hard and extremely fast. On older television screens, viewers could struggle to see where it was travelling. A powerful pass could cross a large portion of the field before a casual viewer understood which player had received it.
High definition and 4K cameras have significantly improved visibility. Better camera placement, replay technology and on screen graphics can now make the game much easier to follow.
However, producing excellent hockey coverage remains complicated.
A broadcaster needs multiple cameras to capture the movement of the ball, the structure of the defence and the speed of a counterattack. A single wide camera may show the formation but lose the details. A close angle may capture the player but miss the developing play.
Major Olympic and World Cup productions can provide this level of coverage. Smaller leagues and domestic competitions often cannot afford it.
The result is a damaging cycle. Poor coverage attracts fewer viewers. Smaller audiences reduce broadcasting revenue. Lower revenue prevents organizers from improving the production.
Field hockey cannot become a premium entertainment product while too many matches still look like basic event streams rather than major professional broadcasts.
The world’s wealthiest sports maintain attention throughout the year.
Football supporters follow clubs for most of the calendar. Basketball and ice hockey teams play long regular seasons followed by playoffs. Cricket has created domestic leagues that operate alongside international competition.
Field hockey remains far more dependent on national teams.
The Olympic Games and FIH Hockey World Cups attract attention, particularly when traditional powers face one another. India against Pakistan, the Netherlands against Belgium or Australia against Germany can produce genuine international excitement.
However, those moments are too irregular to sustain a large commercial ecosystem.
Sponsors need repeated exposure. Broadcasters need a predictable schedule. Fans need teams they can follow every week. Children need local heroes whose careers can be watched across several seasons.
International tournaments alone cannot provide that continuity.
A sport cannot disappear from mainstream attention between major championships and expect to build commercially valuable stars.
Field hockey needs successful professional club leagues in its strongest markets.
The Hockey India League has demonstrated the commercial potential of combining Indian audiences, international players, city based teams and professional presentation.
Its return has created another opportunity to build hockey as an annual entertainment property rather than a sport that receives attention only when the Indian national team reaches an important tournament.
However, one league cannot transform the entire global game.
India needs franchises with strong local identities, recognizable players and long term connections to cities. European hockey needs domestic clubs to become more visible beyond their existing supporters. Australia, Britain and other established hockey countries need competitions that can be watched consistently outside stadiums.
These leagues do not all need to copy the financial scale of cricket’s Indian Premier League. They do need regular schedules, quality broadcasts, dependable sponsors and stories that continue from one season to the next.
Fans must know who the champions are, which teams are rebuilding, which players have transferred and which rivalries matter.
That is how a sport becomes a business rather than a collection of tournaments.
No country may be more important to field hockey’s economic future than India.
India combines a massive population, historic success, growing consumer spending and a national audience that already understands the sport.
The Indian men’s team’s recent Olympic success helped restore pride in a game that had been overshadowed by cricket for decades. Hockey still carries deep emotional significance, particularly in Punjab, Odisha and other regions with strong playing traditions.
But nostalgia alone cannot build a modern industry.
Indian hockey must be marketed with the same sophistication used by successful cricket, football and kabaddi competitions. Matches need strong production, consistent scheduling, social media storytelling and recognizable personalities.
Players should not become famous only after winning an Olympic medal. Fans should know their backgrounds, club affiliations, statistics and rivalries throughout the season.
India also offers one of hockey’s most commercially powerful fixtures: India against Pakistan.
That rivalry contains history, emotion and enormous audience potential. It should be treated responsibly and respectfully, but its ability to attract casual viewers cannot be ignored.
A stronger Indian market could raise salaries, increase sponsorship revenue and give international players a valuable professional destination.
Field hockey also needs a strong Pakistan.
Pakistan is one of the most successful nations in the sport’s history, with generations of players who transformed attacking hockey through skill and creativity.
Its decline has weakened one of international hockey’s greatest rivalries and removed a major audience from regular elite competition.
Restoring Pakistan hockey would not only benefit Pakistani athletes. It would strengthen tournaments, revive regional interest and create more commercially valuable matches.
A competitive India and Pakistan meeting before large crowds could generate the type of attention that field hockey struggles to obtain from ordinary fixtures.
The sport’s governing bodies, broadcasters and commercial partners therefore have an interest in supporting development, coaching and competitive opportunities in countries with historic hockey cultures.
The United States is the world’s most commercially powerful sports market, yet field hockey remains largely outside its mainstream.
The sport has a meaningful American presence, but it is concentrated heavily among girls and women in schools, clubs and universities. More than 280 American college teams compete across the three NCAA divisions.
That foundation is valuable. It has created coaching jobs, scholarships, facilities and a large community of female athletes.
However, field hockey has not converted that participation into a broad professional audience.
There is no major American professional league with national visibility. The men’s game has limited cultural presence, and many Americans hear the word hockey and immediately think of the NHL.
This creates both a challenge and an opportunity.
Women’s sports are attracting rapidly growing investment in the United States. Professional women’s basketball, soccer, hockey and volleyball have demonstrated that audiences will support women athletes when leagues receive proper promotion, accessible broadcasts and credible investment.
Field hockey could build on its existing female participation rather than treating its American identity as a weakness.
A professional or semi professional women’s competition connected to college programs could give graduates somewhere to continue their careers while providing young players with visible role models.
The 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles offer a rare opportunity to introduce the sport to a larger North American audience. Field hockey should be building toward that moment now, not beginning its marketing campaign when the Games arrive.
One of hockey’s greatest improvements also became one of its largest barriers.
Elite field hockey moved from natural grass to synthetic turf during the late twentieth century. The change made the ball travel faster and more consistently. It rewarded technical skill and helped create the modern style of play.
But high quality hockey surfaces are expensive to construct and maintain.
Elite water based pitches also require irrigation before play. The FIH has acknowledged that an international field can require more than 10,000 litres of water to prepare its surface.
That creates obvious difficulties in countries facing water scarcity, weak municipal infrastructure or limited sports funding.
A child can begin playing football with a ball and an open space. Organized field hockey generally requires sticks, protective equipment, goals and an appropriate surface. At higher levels, the cost increases significantly.
This limits grassroots expansion in many of the countries where hockey has its strongest historical following.
The FIH’s development of dry, non irrigated turf standards could become economically transformative. Surfaces that provide elite performance without heavy water consumption could lower operating costs and make new facilities more sustainable.
The sport must also embrace sand dressed and multipurpose surfaces for community use. Not every youth player needs to begin on an Olympic standard pitch.
Traditional eleven player hockey should remain the sport’s premier format, but it cannot be the only entry point.
Smaller forms such as Hockey5s require fewer players and can be staged in more compact venues. They can create faster tournaments, lower organizational costs and provide opportunities in communities that cannot support a full sized field.
Schools should also be able to introduce simplified versions using affordable equipment and multipurpose facilities.
Basketball became globally accessible partly because the basic game could be played almost anywhere. Football spread because children needed very little infrastructure to begin.
Field hockey must find a similar pathway.
If the first experience requires an expensive club membership, specialized turf and significant travel, the sport will exclude millions of potential participants before they ever hold a stick.
Field hockey has world class athletes, but too few are known outside dedicated hockey communities.
This is a marketing failure.
Successful sports industries sell more than matches. They sell personalities, rivalries, redemption stories, local pride and generational debates.
Fans should know the best drag flick specialists, goalkeepers, young prospects, captains and tactical innovators. They should be able to follow their club and international careers through documentaries, interviews and digital content.
Short highlights should explain why a piece of skill was exceptional. Broadcasters should use graphics to show the speed of a shot, the distance covered by a player or the structure of a penalty corner routine.
Commentary should welcome new viewers instead of assuming everyone already understands the rules.
A casual viewer becomes a committed supporter when the game gives them people and stories to care about.
The International Hockey Federation is aware of the sport’s visibility problem.
The FIH Hockey Pro League creates an annual international competition involving leading men’s and women’s national teams. The 2025 to 2026 season runs across several months and locations, giving supporters more regular access to elite hockey.
Watch.Hockey also provides a centralized streaming destination for international competitions and digital content. The FIH entered a new strategic streaming partnership in 2025 intended to strengthen fan engagement and improve global access.
These are important steps.
However, the Pro League remains centred on national teams, and streaming alone cannot create demand. Matches must be promoted properly in each market, scheduled accessibly and presented through compelling broadcasts.
The sport should not expect fans to search for it. Hockey must place itself where fans already consume sports, whether that is television, YouTube, mobile applications or social media.
Field hockey has another major strength that is often undervalued: strong participation by both women and men.
Many sports are now spending heavily to establish women’s competitions and correct decades of underinvestment. Field hockey already possesses established women’s national teams, Olympic history, college systems and highly competitive international tournaments.
The sport should market men’s and women’s hockey together without treating the women’s game as a secondary product.
Combined events can offer broadcasters more matches, sponsors broader reach and families a more inclusive experience.
The success of the Dutch, Argentine, Australian and other women’s programs demonstrates that elite women’s hockey has its own history, stars and rivalries.
In the United States, the women’s game may actually provide the clearest route to commercial growth because of the existing school and college structure.
The objective should not be to make field hockey as wealthy as football or to expect it to challenge cricket in South Asia immediately.
The more realistic goal is to build a stable global industry that reflects the sport’s genuine size.
That means stronger professional leagues, better player salaries, improved broadcasting, affordable community facilities, recognizable athletes and regular access for supporters.
Field hockey already has the audience. It already has the history. It already has international rivalries and an exciting modern product.
What it lacks is a commercial system capable of connecting those strengths.
The difference between a popular activity and an economic juggernaut is not simply the number of people who play. It is the ability to organize those people into a continuous community of viewers, customers and supporters.
Field hockey should be far wealthier and more visible than it is today.
The opportunity remains enormous. But unless the sport fixes its league structure, broadcasting, infrastructure and marketing, it will continue being globally important every four years while commercially invisible for much of the time in between.
