The national hockey league was formed in 1917 in the United States. “The Original Six”, six teams which survived till 1943 in the league and were from that on the only teams until the late 1960s. From 1967 the teams doubled and from that moment new teams joined the league every year.
In the 1990s the new teams positioned Hockey as entertainment, especially family entertainment. The teams added among other things cheerleaders and modern music. Furthermore a new management team was in charge of the NHL, including experienced marketing professionals, who worked before for the NBA and should give the hockey sport a new push.
Sports Marketing
The National Hockey League
1. Summary
The national hockey league was formed in 1917 in the United States. “The Original Six”, six teams which survived till 1943 in the league and were from that on the only teams until the late 1960s. From 1967 the teams doubled and from that moment new teams joined the league every year.
In the 1990s the new teams positioned Hockey as entertainment, especially family entertainment. The teams added among other things cheerleaders and modern music. Furthermore a new management team was in charge of the NHL, including experienced marketing professionals, who worked before for the NBA and should give the hockey sport a new push.
The 1994 playoffs helped the NHL to come to a new level, while the NBA lost their fans. One of the most important things was the network television contract with FOX and numerous professional sport sponsors. All the years the price of the television rights for the NHL were below its professional sports counterparts, until FOX Sports got the rights for the national broadcasting in the United States. Due to the successful broadcasting a lot of companies got aware of the NHL and sponsored them, such as Nike, Coca Cola and Anheuser Busch.
But even as the sport got more and more profitable, the teams had problems to have enough money, especially smaller and the Canadian teams. Members of successful teams earned much more than a few years before, but players of smaller teams couldn’t earn enough money with their sport. In the meantime bigger teams built new stadiums.
Particularly salaries of players exploded and they earned up to 60% of a team’s revenue, but salary caps, which were desired by the owners, were refused by the players.
After a big strike due to the salary cap negotiations, the NHL had to invest $ 10 million dollars for a marketing campaign.
Potential courses of future action had to be discussed after the 1994-95 season. The NHL management team decided to focus on two target groups: the 6-17 year olds and the 18-34 year olds as the primary target group, assuming that older people are already fans of other sports.
Also a problem was, that a really small amount of people tried hockey themselves. The most successful sports in the population in 1994 was walking, swimming and bicycle riding. Basketball was on the 9th place of 53 different kind of sports, played by about 28% of the American population. Ice hockey was just on the 50th place, played by only 2%.
Only 6% of the population who are doing sports, mentioned hockey as their favourite sport, whereas 28% mentioned football and 21% basketball.
A survey about the interest in hockey sport was also very shocking: 61,6% of the 12-55 year olds were not really interested in the hockey sport, only 9,7% described themselves as a big fan. In Canada about 36% called themselves as a big fan of hockey.
One of the important actions was making people aware of hockey on television. The NFL had six times more spectators as the NHL, with only 2 million households watching the games. They tried to establish the appearance of hockey players in public relations and magazines, such as the basketball league in America has done it years before.
One of the marketing specialists, Rick Dudley, tried to motivate young people to play hockey to connect to the sport: “The best way to create a fan is to play the game.”
The NHL created a series of grassroots marketing programs to influence the interest of the young people with street-hockey, roller-hockey and in-line skating. Among other things a hockey tournament, a summer festival, street hockey programs in local markets and an All Star Weekend, following the NBS, were organised.
2. Marketing Options
Even if there are increases in hockey fans, ticket sales and revenues of the television rights, the NHL has still much to improve the image of the sport and gain more fans and interested people. Basketball, baseball and football are successful sports in America, which can be seen as role models for the NHL.
So what are the possibilities for the management of the NHL to establish hockey in their country?
Target Groups
The management of the NHL already specialized on two important target groups. 6-17 year olds have the biggest potential to grow into the hockey sport. 18-34 year olds have also a big potential.
In Canada, the state of hockey, nearly 60% of the 12-20 year olds already played ice hockey, and nearly 70% played street hockey. On the contrary only 28% of the young people in the US tried ice hockey, but at least about 40% played street or roller hockey. But you can see that Canadians can form a bond to the sport much earlier and that’s a big advantage.
Youth hockey groups are also very important, to give young people the chance to play. A group in every bigger city in America should be organised to promote the sport and to provide easier access for the kids. If there are too many barriers to conquer to get to know the sport and to find a group to play with, it is impossible to get people doing that sport. The management of the NHL have to support the young teams, that there is also no financial barrier for families.
Image
It is also very important to improve the image of the sport and get away from the prejudice of being a rude sport with brawls between players. People has to get to know the real players, therefore an image campaign with all players and their background would help to present hockey in a new light.
Maybe some stories of the players how the sport changed or influenced their life in a good way could be told and published in magazines and TV shows. The players should act as role models and convince people of all ages that hockey is a prestigious sport. If older people are influenced by the former image of hockey, they wouldn’t let play their kids and without the support of their families kids aren’t possible to do the sport.
Internet and Social Media
It is important to give the interested and also the potential audience all information they want to find about the sport. Nowadays the easiest way is a professional web presence. All teams need websites, as well as a presence on the famous social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The management of the NHL has to support the teams to guarantee a consistent and relevant presence. Therefore fans can inform themselves easily and fast about their favourite teams, and show them that hockey is a modern and trending sport which concentrates on their fans. Players have to be taught in getting in contact with their fans via social media channels and should host their own pages to gain more fans for their team.
A YouTube channel providing the games can support the social media strategy. People and players can share videos via their accounts on Facebook and Twitter and more people have the chance to see the videos and get in contact with hockey.
Distribution
There are still states in America which doesn’t have present teams in the NHL, while for example on the east coast numerous teams are fighting about their fans. It would be necessary to promote the sport especially in states such as Montana or North and South Dakota. It should also be an aim of the NHL to widespread the sport in states which are not represented in the league at the moment. This can be done via special events in these areas or marketing campaigns on TV and radio.
General Marketing
Marketing activities such as TV and radio commercials are also important to be present in the media and for the audience. Especially commercials for the next games are important to make people aware of the games.
To finance all these strategies and possibilities the NHL needs much more money. The revenues of the TV rights are still too low and they have to increase the prices. While the NBA earned 275,5 million dollar per year for the rights from 1994-1998, the NHL only got 47 million dollars in the US and 29,7 in Canada. If the presence and fan base of the sport is growing, the rights can be sold more expensive and they can finance more marketing strategies. Teams have to deal with revenue reductions to invest more in the marketing of hockey. On a long-term basis the teams will benefit of these action.
3. Recommendation
First of all young people have to get in touch with the hockey sport much earlier. The hockey league has to be present in schools and at sport events from the beginning. There are different possibilities to promote the sport for young people: promotion tours, sponsoring of school events with possibilities to try the sport. Sponsoring of hockey equipment for schools and special rates for tickets at the games for younger people are further actions to promote hockey. A sponsor which is especially attractive for young people would top the strategy off.
I think a salary cap for the league would be also very useful. It gives smaller teams a chance to buy better players and makes the competition therefore more interesting for all teams. Even if the players are demonstrating again, the have to understand that it is an important action to spread the sport in the whole country. Furthermore it is also important for the image of the sport. The audience doesn’t always understand why players earn so much money.
Further on the US has to try to convince people to see hockey as a sport, where they identify themselves, comparable with basketball or baseball. Canadians see the sport as their national sport which has to be watched on TV, because it’s their culture. If the NHL in America get nearly that position, the sport would be saved.
I wouldn’t recommend to see the NBA as a competitor. It would be more effective to work together with other big sports in America to promote sport in general. Maybe there can be organised combined appearances, for example on sports events which are organised by different kinds of sport organizations.
I wouldn’t also exclude older people of the marketing campaigns, who already find their favourite sport, as Bettman mentioned 1995. People who are generally interested in sports are easier to convince to watch a new sport, as people who aren’t interested at all. They are also easier to reach with special marketing campaigns, because there are various ways to communicate with them, such as commercials during games of other sports, sport magazines or other sport events.
It is important to invest in the improvement of the image as mentioned above to remove blockades of the older generation in relation to hockey.
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- Ines Müller (Autor), 2014, Sports Marketing. The National Hockey League, Múnich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/460788