NHL Helmet Sponsorships Show Importance Of Cross-Channel Valuation
BY ADAM GROSSMAN
The National Hockey League (NHL) is allowing its teams to sell sponsorships on players’ helmets for the first time in the 2020-21 season. While this is a new asset, the helmet sponsorships reinforce the need for both properties and partners to complete cross-channel partnership valuations.
The helmet sponsorships are “as a means to make up for lost revenues in the absence of fans due to the Covid-19 pandemic.” The logos are 2.25 inches by 3.75 inches in size and teams can have one or multiple partners. For example, the Columbus Blue Jackets will have Ohio Health for home games and Nationwide for away games.
The helmet sponsorships likely remind many of the NBA jersey patches launched in the 2017-18 season. The jersey patches are of similar size (although in a different location) and introduced for a similar reason (to maximize revenues) to the NHL helmet sponsorships.
Both should also drive value in similar, but unexpected ways. More specifically, many inside and outside of the sports industry view both helmet and jersey sponsorships as primarily a linear television asset.
That could appear problematic particularly for the NHL and NBA. The league saw significant declines in viewership throughout its marquee event, the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2020. The NBA dealt with similar issues at the end of the 2019-20 season as many of its teams look to renew or expand their jersey patch deals.
Tony Ponturo, who served as vice-president of Anheuser-Busch global media sports and entertainment marketing for 17 years, articulated the challenge facing teams in this context. He stated, “If the ratings are down, then those eyeballs are down from looking at the patch. The biggest factor for the value of that patch is how it’s getting picked up on television.”
Ponturo is correct in that how a patch or helmet gets picked up on television is a big factor in determining value. However, it is likely not the biggest factor. As Block Six Analytics discussed in a past post analyzing the value of jersey patches for the 2017-18 season:
The values attributable to social media exposure often significantly exceed the value generated by linear television live broadcasts.
The overall value and the number of impressions that many teams are generating on social media through jersey patch posts require taking a holistic view of social media conversation.
It is necessary to move beyond team and partner owned accounts to understand the total value generated from a partnership.
Examining both television and social media activations using a unified valuation approach is a central component to our Media Analysis Platform. We work with our clients to develop insights across multiple activation channels.
One of these insights is that the quality and engagement of helmet and jersey assets is frequently better in social media. Players move very quickly whether on the court or on the ice during games. It is very difficult to see sponsor logos given their size and the speed at which players move on the ice or on the court.
Game broadcasts also often zoom out to focus on multiple players and see puck / ball movement. Social media posts often contain videos or photos zoomed in directly on individuals. Players also frequently share content from games that features their own performances.
Players posting content does highlight what appears to be an important difference between the NHL and NBA. More specifically, we consistently find that NBA players’ posts are typically bigger drivers of jersey patch values as compared to team accounts. One post by an NBA player can reach more people with a higher quality activation than a game broadcast alone.
NHL players traditionally have not had the same follower size, post frequency, or level of engagement as NBA players. That, however, was changing even prior to COVID-19. In a recent Revenue Above Replacement podcast episode, NHL Senior EVP, Chief Marketing Officer Heidi Browning stated that the league has been encouraging the players to be more active on social media for years. COVID-19 (and social justice initiatives) helped to accelerate these efforts.
The NHL’s helmet logo sponsorships are new assets. The way to determine their effectiveness, however, is to use a proven approach that leverages technology and analytics to examine their cross-channel value.