2020-2021 NHL Changes

[crashcarson15]

I’m fine with the sponsors staying as long as we keep this divisional alignment.  

[Kevin W.]

5 minutes ago, daniel75 said:

For 1 season I can deal with it.

It won't be for one season. The major leagues have a sponsor name attached to everything they can.

 

Next season when (hopefully) fans are back in full force, the owners are going to be just fine keeping that additional revenue going on top of ticket/concession sales. They aren't going to cut revenue if they don't have to. The Maple Leafs could reduce their ticket costs and still make more money than Hockey God but they won't do that because they know that once fans are allowed back into the arena, they're going to buy tickets even when the team is a total dumpster fire.

[CreamSoda]

after seeing a fair amount of helmet ads... why is the Penguins PPG one so LARGE.....

[monkeypower]

3 hours ago, wheateater said:

I think you have to dive down to Junior A hockey to find something this crass. In my neck of the woods, the SJHL has divisions named after Viterra, Global Ag Risk Solutions, and Sherwood, and the teams play for the Canalta Cup. It's a necessary evil because this is Saskatchewan and most of the markets have populations of about 5,000. Those sponsorships are more about giving back to the community and keeping the league afloat. For the NHL, it's about greed and profits.

 

The Global Ag Risk Solutions Division has only existed for seven seasons and has used four different names.

 

It was the Kramer Division from 2013-14 to 2015-16 (Farm equipment auction company).

Then the Finning Division for the 2014-15 season (CAT dealerships)

Then the Olympic Buildings Division from 2015-16 to 2017-18 (Construction company)

Then the Global Ag Risk Solutions Division from 2018-19 to Pres. (Farm insurance)

 

All the Jr. A leagues in Canada have one combination or the other of sponsored divisions, playoffs or championships with teams having jersey ads. Like you said, it is a way of life for those leagues because it's a nice cash flow, but I also don't think it's always a strictly benevolent "for the good of the league" thing either.

[O.C.D]

18 minutes ago, CS85 said:

Reading of this on twitter and reddit depressed me.  A lot of people were saying things like, "I'm so used to this with soccer that I actually kind of like it," or "I don't know why anyone cares." 

The ambivalence or even embraceful attitudes toward the ads is the doom of sports design, and we get to fiddle while it burns.

People thinking that the ads on the uniform are aesthetically pleasing is like Stockholm syndrome and it is really sad. I don't like ads on uniforms, I don't think anyone here does. It's like we're watching an endangered species dwindle or a relative about to pass away. I just don't have any hope it's going to reverse or get better. It would be nice to be wrong.

[wheateater]

18 minutes ago, monkeypower said:

 

The Global Ag Risk Solutions Division has only existed for seven seasons and has used four different names.

 

It was the Kramer Division from 2013-14 to 2015-16 (Farm equipment auction company).

Then the Finning Division for the 2014-15 season (CAT dealerships)

Then the Olympic Buildings Division from 2015-16 to 2017-18 (Construction company)

Then the Global Ag Risk Solutions Division from 2018-19 to Pres. (Farm insurance)

 

All the Jr. A leagues in Canada have one combination or the other of sponsored divisions, playoffs or championships with teams having jersey ads. Like you said, it is a way of life for those leagues because it's a nice cash flow, but I also don't think it's always a strictly benevolent "for the good of the league" thing either.

 

For sure there's an obvious benefit to these sponsorships in a league made up of rural communities. Agriculture is big business. There's got to be something in it for the companies. But I think it's as much PR ("look at us supporting the community!") as it is advertising.

[monkeypower]

21 minutes ago, wheateater said:

 

For sure there's an obvious benefit to these sponsorships in a league made up of rural communities. Agriculture is big business. There's got to be something in it for the companies. But I think it's as much PR ("look at us supporting the community!") as it is advertising.

Oh yeah for sure that, but I was talking about from the league and the teams perspective. 
 

Like there’s got to be a nice chunk of change coming to the teams and league(s) through the sponsorship and a lot of it is necessary for the financial wellbeing of the league(s) and teams, but I don’t think it’s as black and white as you say about the NHL owners being greedy and the Jr. leagues doing it to survive.
 

I don’t believe that every single sponsorship is being sold in an altruistic “the league/team needs every dollar just to survive” kind of thing. There’s still money changing hands and being made in junior hockey.

[Osgiliath-Guard]

4 hours ago, Osgiliath-Guard said:

Maybe instead of all this bitching about ads and $#!+, we could just stop bitching and see if they follow through on their word to get rid of it in a year. How's that sound?

 

2 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

If you believe they'll get rid of an extra revenue source just as fans start getting used to it, I've got a bridge to sell you.

I'll hold onto a bit of optimism for now thank you. In all honesty, I agree with both sides. The league will keep the ads, I'm sure, but I still cling to some hope that they won't. "There was never any hope. Just a fool's hope." I will always hold onto that fool's hope to the last. There's always a chance.

[Ridleylash]

Junior hockey and Euro hockey kinda rely on those sponsorships to even sustain the cost of running the leagues. The NHL is plenty more wealthy than the NOJHL or even the KHL, so there's nowhere near as much of a real incentive to push towards the kind of stuff we see in those leagues. It's not their primary form of revenue generation like the NOJHL, it's a supplement.

 

The league's largest form of revenues are gate and TV; one of which isn't going to be happening in most buildings for a while, if at all this season and the other is up this season and likely going to have a decently large sum for it.

 

Owners aren't mindlessly money-seeking missiles, they're businessmen that work on business logic. There's a law of diminishing returns to slathering ads all over the uniform for major-league sports, because then each individual ad is less exclusive, and thus less lucrative. Exclusivity breeds demand, which in turn means teams get more money per deal; if anything, keeping them minimalized is better for the NHL than going full junior-league adspam because of the fact it creates more demand for that limited space and drives up the price of even having the ad to begin with.

 

And if it took a global pandemic and an incredible economic collapse to finally force the NHL to even put ads on helmets, I think we're a long time from even coming close to having ads plastered all over the jerseys.

[habsfan1]

[DEAD!]

OK. I can live with the ads on the helmets and they could have just stopped there.... but divisions? 

 

[DEAD!]

8 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

 

What? No "MOLSON'S" Sacre Bleu. 

[IceCap]

On 1/4/2021 at 1:57 PM, Ridleylash said:

I mean, they had red on their logo briefly in the 1940's;

And no one but people like us know that.

[habsfan1]

17 minutes ago, DEAD! said:

What? No "MOLSON'S" Sacre Bleu. 

 

Fixed.

[BBTV]

28 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

 

It's the SportsLogos.net message board of jerseys.

[Echo]

31 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

 

At least there's no ad on the helmet! /s

[DEAD!]

5 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

 

Fixed.

I would have went with St Hubert instead of McDonald's 

[The_Admiral]

Can the Lightning repeat in Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment?

[Ridleylash]

I mean, the main reason junior and Euro teams slap ads all over the place is because those ads essentially pay for the league's functioning. The NHL, even if values take a bit of a drop, is far more rich than the NOJHL or some other small league. Having extremely limited ad space on the helmet or jersey would drive up demand, and thus drive up the price that sponsors will pay.

 

In terms of economics, it makes less sense to slap ads all over the NHL jerseys because it becomes a case of diminishing returns; the more ad space, the less you can charge for that space. In a league that has a hefty amount of revenue from other sources and is likely getting a bigger TV deal in the very near future, there's not much incentive to slather the jerseys in ads because the ads wouldn't add so much revenue that it counteracts the diminished value of them.

 

Besides, if the owners are greedy enough to want big cash, they can always go looking to expand again instead of doing what would actually draw in less money than adding two more expansion teams; it's what the MLB did in the 90's.

[AFirestormToPurify]

56 minutes ago, habsfan1 said:

Forgot the Viagra ad there bud