NHL brand value falls
LOCKOUT COST LEAGUE more than $328 million, study says
TORONTO — While hockey season is back in full swing after the NHL lockout, longtime Edmonton Oilers fan Edward Wright has nearly abandoned the game he once obsessed over.
Feeling jilted by months of backroom negotiations between the owners and players, Wright said he wanted to send a clear message to the hockey league. So, he packed up his Oilers merchandise and shipped it off to an NHL blog in protest, asking that they donate it to charity.
He also scrapped a highpriced hockey package from his local cable provider and cut back on visits to team blogs he used to frequent. As far as Wright is concerned, the NHL has lost one die hard hockey fan.
And he’s not alone, shows a study released Wednesday that says the lockout has left many Canadian hockey fans feeling slighted by the NHL, a factor that has pulled down its overall brand value.
Consultancy firm Brand Finance, which tracks the clout of brand names in the real world, estimates that the NHL will lose nearly $328.2 million in brand value in 2013 as fans spend less money on hockey in the coming year, for an overall postlockout NHL brand value of $1.56 billion.
By comparison, the NFL has a brand value of $9.13 billion, Major League Baseball $4.4 billion, and the NBA $2.74 billion, states Brand Finance.
Among the most valuable Canadian NHL teams, the Toronto Maple Leafs lost $26 million in brand value due to the lockout, down to $141 million; the Canadiens $36 million, down to $126 million; and the Vancouver Canucks lost $26.6 million in brand value to $89.6 million, the report said.
Overall, Canadian teams saw $125 million shaved off their brand value.
Much of the fallout comes from casual hockey fans who have decided to look elsewhere for their entertainment, said Brand Finance managing director Edgar Baum.
He said the hockey league has offered what some people deemed too few incentives to return to arenas.
“It is possible to recover (the brand value), but we’re not seeing any indication that’s going to happen,” Baum said.
The brand value report was coupled with a survey of Canadian hockey fans com- pleted by its partner firm Level 5, which showed that 41 per cent of casual hockey fans are feeling “more negatively about the sport” after the most recent lockout.
“The difference this time is that they are going back with a big chip on their shoulder,” said David Kincaid, managing partner and CEO of Level 5.
“The chip on the shoulder becomes interesting when next year’s season tickets come forward, when the indulgence of the rush back to the game is taken care of, and we’re back to business as usual,” Kincaid added.
Kincaid said casual hockey fans who were surveyed say they plan to cut back on season tickets, branded merchandise and watch less of the sports packages they bought from local cable and satellite providers.
The study seems to contradict recent evidence that Canadian fans are more rabid about hockey than they’ve been in years. When the NHL returned to the ice in mid-January, the games pulled in record viewership numbers for CBC’s televised coverage.