When Jörgen Lindgren took over as part-time CEO of the Swedish Super League Association (FSSL), he was presented as a world-class new acquisition given his experience from ice hockey.
Now he has soon spent a year at the new job. And Jörgen Lindgren thinks that there is enormous potential in both floorball and SSL.
– Culturally, there is not much difference between floorball and ice hockey. It is the scope itself that differs. If you watch the SHL, all players and leaders live on training and playing ice hockey. We are not there yet. Only a few players in floorball are full-time professionals, says Jörgen Lindgren and continues:
– The income is so much greater in ice hockey so the conditions are different. Most floorball players have jobs or study alongside. Our goal is for our floorball players to also be able to live on their sport in the future, says Jörgen Lindgren whose main task is to build up the commercial business.
– Jörgen Lindgren hopes that floorball players will be able to live on their sport in the future.
Photo: Maxim Thoré / Bildbyrån
Ice hockey’s lucrative TV and sponsorship deal floorball is not close even though it was possible to watch all SSL matches in pay channels this season following an agreement signed last year.
It is Sportexpressen Play that has the rights for the next five years – both on the women’s and men’s side. The agreement is said to be the largest rights agreement that SSL has ever signed.
– A long-term and important agreement. We wanted all SSL matches on the men’s and women’s side to be available to watch. We wanted to ensure that we would take up more space. But then we have to continue working with detailed issues, says Jörgen Lindgren.
He continues:
– But the basis with TV broadcasts on Sportexpressen and SVT in the final opens up that everyone can watch it. Then it’s hard work that counts and having a plan on how to proceed. The near future will be important, says Jörgen Lindgren.
It comes with the job that there will come a day when you have to leave.
Floorball has just as the rest of the world was affected by the corona pandemic.
The men’s and women’s finals were divided into two weekends and Kalmarsund could not complete its semi-final against Falun.
– It is extremely sad that we had to finish last season before the playoffs and this season we have played without an audience. It’s downright economical. But the clubs and players have been absolutely magical in switching to reality.
The well-known hockey name says that he does not feel any bitterness that he had to leave his job as CEO of SHL 2018.
– I got a message that I would quit. After seven years, maybe it was time to make a change. It comes with the job that there will come a day when you have to leave, he says.
– “We have incredibly skilled players and clubs who work hard to make us ‘the best league in the world'”, says Jörgen Lindgren
Photo: Per Wiklund / Bildbyrån
Jörgen Lindgren had been away from ice hockey for a while before he came to floorball.
– Of course it was a change, but the questions are equal. It is a sport in a great team sport. It is the scope of the questions that is smaller than in ice hockey, says the 53-year-old.
He thinks there is great potential in both SSL and floorball.
– We are over 120,000 athletes and it is really only football that is larger in the number of athletes. We have a ladies and gentlemen under one roof. We share everything equally. We have incredibly skilled players and clubs who work hard to make us “the best league in the world”, says Jörgen Lindgren who himself played both ice hockey and floorball.
The parent clubs are Järna IK (ice hockey) and Telge SIBK (floorball).
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