How NHL Kept Its Sponsors Despite a Strike

Even before the National Hockey League locked out its players out for the 2004-05 season, it kept its valued sponsors up to speed with its collective bargaining agreement contract negations with its players. And by remaining in touch with its sponsors during the 310-day lockout, the league has all its sponsors returning for its 2005-06 return season.

“We didn’t want to be transparent with our partners, so we educated them about the potential work stoppage and sat down one to one to prepare them,” says Andrew Judelson, group vice president-corporate marketing for the NHL. “Our intent was to let them know we take our partnership seriously.”

During the lockout, Judelson says his office stayed in constant communication with its marketing partners, keeping the sponsors up-to-date with the contract negotiations, because the league did not want them to believe any stories in the newspapers and online that had been taken out of context.

Judelson says the league’s sponsors, which include Budweiser, Dodge, MasterCard, and MBNA, were appreciative of the updates and of the NHL’s other partner-centric tactics – such as including provisions in their contracts to extend the partnership by a year and reworking certain exclusive rights.

One partner, Southwest Airlines, which let its sponsorship contract with the NHL expire just before the lockout began, says it would in fact consider a return to the league. Andy Allmann, Southwest's senior manager-sports marketing, notes that he received an e-mail from Judelson the day the lockout ended, even though his company was no longer a sponsor.

Judelson says that the NHL is looking at certain areas to add partners, such as in the pharmaceutical, banking, overnight delivery, and automotive aftercare categories. “But our most important job is to take care of the sponsors who looked after us during the lockout,” he adds. “Our best sales agents for future sponsors are out current sponsors.”

One sponsorship deal with the NHL may be altered: Nextel, which merged with Sprint last month, may shift its league sponsorship over to the Sprint brand, according to Judelson. Nextel, which is the title sponsor of NASCAR’s biggest racing series, recently signed a wireless deal with the National Football League, and that sponsorship will be carried out by the Sprint brand.

Another thing that may happen with the NHL, according to Judelson, is the elimination of single-country sponsorships. Partners including McDonald’s, Labatt, and Home Depot, which currently sponsor the NHL only in Canada, would need to include the United States in its sponsorship plans. Those brands see Canada’s six franchises – Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, and Ottawa – as prime marketing vehicles north of the border, where hockey is a critical aspect of daily life, and they can tailor their marketing needs in Canada around the sport. But Judelson says the NHL would prefer to have its sponsors be in both countries or none in at all.