Connor McDavid is eager to shrug off personal stats, awards and achievements, and put the focus on his team in Edmonton, Alberta — yet there he is on the cover of a video game or in a commercial for a bank.
Auston Matthews is the face of the franchise in Toronto, but he also got razzed by his Maple Leafs teammates for doing a fashion shoot for GQ magazine.
For decades, the rink has been the comfort zone for so many ice hockey players who put their full energy into the sport and are indoctrinated from a young age that the logo on the front of the jersey matters more than the name on the back.
That team-oriented part of hockey culture remains entrenched, but the NHL is finally beginning to market its stars as the NFL and NBA have done with great success.
For a sport that generally sees its TV ratings drawn from fans of the two teams playing — and where the Stanley Cup Final does not pull in nearly as much as the Super Bowl or NBA Finals — it is a concerted effort to build up personalities and players’ brands.
Matthews, McDavid, Nashville’s P.K. Subban and other stars are sharing more personality than players of previous eras. No longer is it seen as selfish for Subban to host a late-night talk show or for Matthews to shoot a cellphone commercial.
“Why not try? Just because the person next to me doesn’t think that they can host their own show doesn’t mean that I can’t,” Subban said. “What people have to understand is we’re at the rink three hours a day. We have a lot of time.”
Showcasing those interests is part of the NHL’s shift.
The league this season debuted a “Skates Off” series of vignettes with a player from all 31 teams showing what they are like off the ice, including Jack Eichel being a guest disk jockey at a Buffalo, New York, classic rock radio station, Victor Hedman sharing his love of flying planes and Seth Jones showing his cooking talent.
“It’s nice to see those personalities come out,” said Nick Foligno, Jones’ teammate in Columbus. “That’s how you grow the game. You look in other sports and the personalities come out, and that’s what fans are drawn to.”
NHL chief content officer and executive vice president Steve Mayer knows this. Since joining the league in 2015, he has helped lead the charge to put more focus on star players who could play a role in attracting younger fans.
“Other leagues do this, and we really don’t do it as well — we want to get better at it,” Mayer said. “Other leagues, it doesn’t really matter sometimes: You just tune in to watch the guy play. And we need to do that even more... I want to be able to have fans even in [another] town [who] cannot wait to see Connor McDavid come to town because we have marketed him as one of our greatest players.”
The league has no interest in abandoning the team culture of hockey, Mayer said, but after a 2016 Magna Global study showed that the average age of NHL fans rose 16 years over a span of 16 years, experts praised the league for trying to create more buzz among younger people.
“They recognize this, and they’re in a cultural shift, a cultural transformation within hockey,” said Stephanie Tryce, assistant professor of sports marketing at Saint Joseph’s University. “Generation Z is about a lifestyle. They’re interested in things like social responsibility and they celebrate more of their identities than in the past, so that’s going to force hockey to continue to make inroads into other markets like the Hispanic/Latino market.”
McDavid, the 2017 NHL Most Valuable Player who has arguably surpassed Sidney Crosby as the greatest player in the world, is also finding his voice off the ice.
When NFL Canada asked Rams and Patriots players at the Super Bowl who McDavid was, several thought maybe the Canadian prime minister or an actor.
Work is ongoing to make him more recognizable outside hockey.
Hockey is such a team sport that individualism has for decades been frowned upon.
It is a delicate balance to try to sell personalities, but not stray too far from the team, Adidas senior director Dan Near said.
“You’re starting to see guys be promoted a little more, and it’s nice, because then you get to see some individual personalities come out, and in a sport where you’re so often wearing helmets and gear, people don’t get to relate to you face-to-face,” Ottawa’s Bobby Ryan said.
Teams have been reluctant to some of the league’s efforts until they see the final product.
Initiatives such as “Stanley Cup Confidential,” for which a player from each of the league’s 16 playoff teams shoots a daily cellphone video, is another baby step.
“We are not here to break the culture. We’re just here to show that certain players are dynamic and have personality,” Mayer said.
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