North American ice-hockey’s top-tier NHL has expanded its relationship with Palo Alto Networks as a commercial partner, in a multi-year tie-up.
Through a multi-pronged deal unveiled today, Palo Alto secured a range of exclusive marketing rights, with that brand to be connected to the league’s fans through “marketing, digital, and social media channels” for the length of the agreement.
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Overall, Palo Alto has been providing the 32-team NHL with cybersecurity technology and solutions, as a service partner, since 2009.
The NHL has said this new tie-up will enable an improvement in the number of cybersecurity threats blocked each month, as well as enhanced security for Internet of Things devices, and “elevated fan engagement from a secured user experience.”
Dave Munroe, the NHL’s senior vice president of information technology and cybersecurity, has stated: “We continue to stay ahead of the game with Palo Alto Networks cloud, network, and security operations solutions. The addition of this partnership underscores the strength of our commitment to continued innovation in areas such as AI and digital transformation.”
KP Unnikrishnan, chief marketing officer at Palo Alto Networks, added: "We are proud to stand alongside the NHL as their trusted cybersecurity partner and look forward to continuing to deliver value to the NHL's business while seizing the opportunities of this deepened relationship.”
The NHL has already standardized on Palo Alto Networks for network security operations, through solutions such as the latter's Prisma Access Browser AI Access Security.
In terms of the league’s commercial activity, mid-February saw it unveil a multi-year deal extension with Japanese car manufacturer Honda.
Under the renewal, Honda continues to have a presence at NHL marquee events throughout each season, including title sponsorship of the NHL All-Star Weekend on Long Island, and as one of the league’s partners of its Winter Classic, Four Nations Face-Off, and Stadium Series.
The 2024-25 NHL regular season began on October 4, and comes to a close on April 17, to be followed by the post-season playoffs and Stanley Cup Finals, running through to June.
In terms of cybersecurity commercial partnerships across the other major North American sports leagues, meanwhile, last October saw the NFL announce that it would from that point on be leveraging Cisco’s enterprise networking and cybersecurity solutions for the NFL International Games.
Cisco has served as the NFL’s official enterprise networking partner and an official cybersecurity partner since September 2021.
