The NHL Marketing Strategy

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In a competitive sports market, the National Hockey League is trying to catch up and compete with the other major sporting leagues through innovative marketing tactics and embracing the emergence of new forms of media and technology. At its current state, the marketing of the NHL is adapting to new marketing strategies in order to expand its revenue and reach new audiences. The current COO of the NHL has been using the techniques of other leagues and implementing them into the league’s scheduling and promotion. Furthermore, order to expand its financial capabilities, the NHL is also exploring new forms of bringing in revenue from sponsors and ad placements. Finally, with the rapid progression of technology and data, the league is constantly …show more content…

While some of these strategies are basic innovations to an already existing platform, others are much more controversial. One avenue that the League is exploring is sponsored jerseys, similar to that of major European football leagues (Dewhirst, 2016). With this strategy, players’ jerseys would have sponsors’ logos placed directly on them, and this has already been tested in more controlled environments such as the World Cup of Hockey. While John Collins, the leagues current CEO, has said that that these types of sponsorship strategies will be inevitable in the future, there is a worry that the use of sponsored jerseys will receive backlash from fans. The various conflicts between players, teams and the League also come into question, as many of the sponsors for each level of brand have competing interests. A less controversial approach that was experimented by the League is a simple innovation to a current medium: virtual advertisements on rink boards. Using infrared technology, a virtually overlay can be displayed on the traditional rink boards in order for ads and sponsors to have more customizable and creative placements (Krashinsky, 2016). This makes the NHL’s marketing capabilities much more versatile, as they can now cater their placements based on viewing region, nationality, and scale. Companies who want their content to take over the entire …show more content…

As cameras get smaller and more versatile, fans are now able to have views of the game that they never had access to before; one such example is the RefCam. The technology is a broadcast-ready helmet that “transmits video from the users to broadcast in real time, allowing fans the chance to watch hockey from the perspective of someone on the ice” (CBC, 2016). The camera was developed out of Windsor, Ontario by Chris Stramacchia, who wanted a way to have an on-ice view of his son’s hockey game in 2014. Fast-forward to 2016, his technology was debuted in in the NHL All-Star Game and is now being implemented into the league’s regular programming (CBC, 2016). Data has also been an emerging factor in the way in which the NHL markets its content. Information such as “ticket and merchandise purchase data, what fans are doing at the game, and how they’re engaging across digital platforms and social media” (Bruell, 2017) are also useful tools to understand how consumers behave and in turn, how to reach them. Using this data, the NHL and its teams can cater their content in their broadcasting and online presence to the demographics that that they want to attract the most. This, in turn, will shape the NHL’s marketing strategy for the future and as the league responds to its new data, this process will continue to

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