Wyatt Hamilton's Blog

It is no secret that for professional sports, a significant source of income for teams and owners is produced by selling advertisement space. And why wouldn’t they, for it’s a great business opportunity for both parties. The owners can make a profit that can go towards buying better players, improving their facilities or towards the marketing of their own team. Companies on the other hand, are using the stage of professional sports to advertise to thousand of potential consumers who are dialed in and eager to watch.

The space available for adverti-sement however, is not always facility or arena specific. The issue I have with this topic, is when the want for money becomes so great, that advertisers push boundaries and very square inch of a uniform is up for sale. I realize it is a business, and making a profit is key, but I believe it is important for sport to hold onto its traditional values. Specifically, looking like a traditional hockey player is a huge part of hockey heritage.

Professional hockey in Europe has moved towards a trend where you aren’t watching hockey players…you’re watching skating billboards.

Granted, European hockey doesn’t have the endorsement dollars that, for example, the National Hockey League may have, so in a sense I can understand why they need to use any means necessary to create extra income.  But “littering” their uniforms in order to make money is in my opinion trashy, desperate and distracting. When you’re unable to distinguish a team logo from amongst all the clutter, I think it is time to take a step back and pump the breaks on uniform advertising.

Personally, I’m glad North American hockey has embraced a simpler look. The fans appreciate it more, for it creates a clearer team identity for the fans to relate to.  Legacy and tradition are deeply situated in team jersey’s, and although logo’s and colors do evolve, North American players look classy on the ice, and everyone knows that style matters.

Two different blogs this week both touched on similar themes. Scott Wasden and Kaylee Astle talked about risqué advertising, and how it may grab the attention of consumers, but can also lead to negative associations towards a brand. Every firm is ultimately in control of how they want to advertise they’re products, and what image it will create for them.

This made me think of major sponsorships in professional sports. Corporations spend significant amounts of money in order to advertise along side teams in every major sport in North America. A lot of controversy has been in the news lately about Air Canada and their threats to pull sponsorship from the NHL if they don’t start addressing certain on ice matters, more specifically head shots.
For those of you who are unsure of the incident that sparked these discussions, it happen in Montreal in a game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins. Zdeno Chara hit Montreal forward Max Pacioretty into the side boards. He suffered serious head truama and had to be taken off on a stretcher. Chara was assessed a major penalty but no further disciplinary actions were taken by the league for it was deemed unintentional; a clean hit that lead to unfortunate consequences.
Air Canada’s director of marketing Denis Vandal wrote a letter to the NHL offices saying “Unless the NHL takes immediate action with serious suspension to the players in question to curtail these life-threatening injuries, Air Canada will withdraw its sponsorship of hockey.”

Personally, I am having trouble legitimizing the boldness of this statement and with what Air Canada is trying to do. It is no secret that hockey is a physical sport and injuries do occur, but there is little doubt that Air Canada was not aware of this physicality and risk involved in the game before they began their sponsorship of six Canadian and five American NHL teams. Regardless of the airline’s intention, pulling sponsorship in Canada alone would seem to be bad business for an already struggling company. Canadians hold such passion for hockey, and for Air Canada to step in and give the National Hockey League an ultimatum will only drive customers away from them. This threat (which seems to become emptier each day) has  garnered a lot of negative attention, and has left fans and customers with a distaste towards Air Canada as a brand.

Lets face it , Air Canada as an airline company hasn’t always proven themselves to be a fan favorite. With the availability of so many quality alternatives, choosing an airline such as West Jet won’t be much of a push outside of a loyal consumer’s comfort zone. This time however, good intentions aside, Air Canada may have done the pushing themselves.

Nothing like a surprise sunny day in Vancouver when the forecast called for rain all day long! The spring is a great time of year, the sun shines just a little bit more, the temperature continues to rise and everyone starts shedding the clothing layers. It also gets me exceptionally excited for a few things; beach season, outdoor tennis, slo-pitch ball tournaments, patio drink…ahhhh studying and most importantly the NHL playoffs! A couple days ago the Vancouver Sun published an article about a topic I touched on in one of my previous posts about the NHL’s “History Will Be Made” campaign. Not only was it the NHL’s most successful ad campaign to date, but its coming back for another year.

That’s just about as good of an excuse as any to hit up YouTube and watch some new commercials. If you don’t want to wait till March 13th when NBC starts airing the commercials on network TV, then click below and get a taste of the new videos. I enjoyed them and think you will too.

Your welcome.

One other point I found extremely interesting in the article by Mac Perry, was how he touched on the distribution of the ads. They “will be distributed on TV, online, radio, print, in-arena, in stories, mobile and social media platforms of the NHL, NBC and Versus, along with NBA Universal platforms, such as MSNBC and CNBC.” Many different platforms are essential in order to reach the broadest fan base possible. Funny how things in real life link up to class material.

The NHL last season had its most watched playoffs in 36 seasons last year, one can only hope they surpass that this year.

Lately the talk of pricing has been thrown around a lot and that has made me think about how professional teams charge admission. I believe one of the best places to look would be the home of “The Great 8”, Alexander Ovechkin.

The Great 8 - Alexander Ovechkin

He is fast, skilled, aggressive, and most importantly entertaining. Since entering the NHL in the 2005-06 season, he has won countless awards, scoring titles, resurrected a failing franchise, accepted a key to the city, penned numerous endorsement deals, oh and signed one of the richest contracts in leagues history at 13 years $124 million. He is THE face of not only the Washington Capitals but also the NHL.

So I guess the question behind the Capitals decision to invest that sort of dollar amount in one player is…Does price indicate quality?

When Ovi joined the Caps, he took them from a team that had trouble getting any fans at all, to a franchise that has the hottest ticket in town where everyone will do just about anything to get their hands on them. The Washington Post’s Dan Steinberg had an interesting blog about how the Caps have raised ticket prices for the third season in a row. They have moved from a sale to profit orientation pricing scheme; even with these increases they are still in the bottom third of the league for average season ticket sales, which goes to show how low their ticket prices were before Ovi.

Personally I think it is hard not to justify this guys contract. His marketability is something every other NHL front office drools over and wished they had. ESPN featured Ovechkin on E:60;

if one player can do this for your team…give the dog a bone… scratch that, 124 million bones.