No Super Bowl Critics This Year
Last year I was critical of the NHL not advertising during the Super Bowl. With the lockout going on, it would have been a good opportunity to reach out to fans and remind them the league still cares - and remind the rest of America that there’s still a sport called hockey.
This year the NHL could still use a boost. A Super Bowl commercial could highlight Crosy and Ovechkin and perhaps some of the best shootout goals of the year. It could really highlight anything. But the NHL is not on the list of Super Bowl advertisers (login req) and I haven’t heard a soul complain about it this year.
The “why” is obvious. My Faceless NHL. If the NHL were to go ahead and air one of those commercials, or a condensed version of the storyline, it’d be a bigger waste of cash than dot-bomb buys at the turn of the century.
The NFL marketing machine has used past Super Bowl clips and MVPs and made commercials highlighting the rich history of the league - but wait - we’re only on Super Bowl XL - that’s 40 for the Roman Numeral impaired. Forty. Four zero. If you watched NFL games this season and caught the “Road to Forty” commercials you saw quick highlights. MVPs in action - and how they are today. Older. All neat and clean, and in suits. Real plays and real players. You know that guy. Even if you can’t remember his name, you’ve seen that play on a highlight reel somewhere, haven’t you? By the tenth time you’ve seen it you’re sure, you know that play. You know Bart Starr. You know Marcus Allen. And if you didn’t, you do now. You know they were stars. They have to be after these highlights, right? They have to be with the current players looking up to them the way they do in the commercials, right?
The NHL gave us no one. They focused on the game, turning it into a war and the players into warriors. It’s not a horrible analogy, but not the most popular one given current events of the past few years. But more importantly we were given actors. “NHL” jerseys and “hockey-looking” players. Somehow, we were supposed to care. We didn’t.
Since 1925 the Stanley Cup, the most recognized trophy in all of sports, has been an NHL prize. That’s over 80 years. Double the amount of memories the Super Bowl can produce - and that’s if you’re only counting final games. Focus on that. Focus on what made people scream and cry and feel like they belonged to the team they were cheering for - and that’s not the Cup itself. It’s the plays and the players that made them. Showing Bobby Orr in the air on a loop for 30 seconds would have drawn in more people than My Faceless NHL - and we all know there’s more to work with.
So save your money NHL. Come up with a campaign that highlights your real product and give America, and all who watch the Super Bowl, that reminder of what they’re missing next year.
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