With a great matchup with two American teams, one in Hockeytown and the other in “Sidneytown,” the NHL appears posied to finish off a year that has seen them make great strides to grow in the digital space, create unique sponsor activation and find ways to build some of their athletes like Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovetchkin as crossover stars for casual fans, diehard hockey followers and for the brands that have worked with them regionally, nationally and internationally (click on NHL in categories for a list of all the successes the league has had since we started the blog). include a massive push both online and at retail.detailed in DMnews this week.?The season certainly has seen the league breakthrough in some key markets with increased activation and viewership, and a compelling final should give the brand a good offseason point to jump off from.
As the NHL readies for all the positives of the finals, it is interesting to see how others can recover from a flop. Ad Age's Madison and Vine has a solid piece this week on the make good efforts that Warner Brothers is taking on because of the failed draw of the movie Speed Racer. Although not exactly about sports, it does give some great insight into how a media brand handles poor performance (which can always equate to sports, since PR and Marketing can never control on field performance) and finds ways, especially with major partners, to do some make goods…two good Olympic reads as well…first the Australian has a piece on how marketers are spending, or not spending and when, dollars in China specific just yet for Beijing…then in today's New York Times is a good piece by Katie Thomas on USA Wrestling's “Fuel The Dream” project, which addresses th.unsupported costs of having immediate family members join athletes in Beijing…another good piece to read from the Times, also not really sports but with some interesting applications, is the weekend piece on how to revive old brands and bring them back to life…as many sports think “retro” during their season, might be some good application here as well…lastly on the MMA side, with CBS set to televise the first ever network event in a week, sherdog.com offered up a piece on why CBS is saying the event could be a success…definately something for those looking to expand into that elusive male demo will want to follow..
