NBC Sports blows off advertisement of NHL during Super Bowl
EDIT: To clarify, I was talking about the NBC Game of the Week, not necessarily the NBC Sports Network. They did air a commercial for the network sometime early in the game. Here it is (and it's pretty good):
For those who've forgotten, NBC signed a rather large partnership deal with the NHL for exclusive broadcast rights back in April, beating out heavyweight ESPN both in terms of length (NBC's got the league for ten years) and money ($2 billion). Part of this deal was the eventual -- and welcomed -- switch of Versus to the NBC Sports Network. Hockey fans were getting an upgrade in technology and appearance. Gone were the days of wonky studio shows and broadcasts of meh quality. Welcome to the Mike Milbury/Pierre McGuire era.
Ok, that's not a positive, I know, but the point is this: NBC hired some of the best and most knowledgable hockey people to broadcast a number of games every week. In addition to the Sunday NBC Game of the Week which is nationally televised, NBC Sports Network also airs between three to five games during the week. It's maximum exposure for the sport, right? Wrong.
The most maximum of maximum arenas, the Super Bowl, is a very prime spot to showcase the rest of NBC's sports line-up, and let's face it: hockey's the best they have other than football. Ratings are solid among hockey fans, and NBC saw what kind of ratings casual fans can bring in during the Olympics. It would stand to reason that they'd advertise the Game of the Week between the Washington Capitals and the New York Rangers. You have Ovechkin, you have Lundqvist, you have a team from one of the markets playing in the Super Bowl. How in the world any network who wants to promote their product would overlook putting at least a couple of ads on TV, or a mention during the game, is beyond me. But that's exactly what NBC did.
You get more hockey in this Budweiser commercial than NBC promoted the entire game:
I'm pretty sure that your eyes zeroed in on the USA jersey and the reference to Miracle on Ice. Unfortunately, the US wasn't deemed worthy of the awesome "Flash Fans" ad that Bud showed in Canada during the game (in between CTV Olympics ads, from what I gathered from Twitter). But to have a nanosecond of hockey mentioned in a Bud commercial be the only exposure that NBC gave a sport that they're paying $2 billion over ten years to broadcast is just asinine.
The NHL on NBC gets more plug time on 30 Rock than it does anywhere else, and technically speaking I'm pretty sure Paul Giamantti wasn't sporting this Islanders jersey to get Pierre some more ratings. So far Liz Lemon and Jack Donaghy have taken in a New York Rangers game, Tracy Jordan has worn a Rangers goalie mask on his wife's short-lived reality TV show Queen of Jordan, Lemon went to visit NBC's Boston affiliate and everyone in the office was wearing Bruins gear, and there was even a shout-out to the 1995 Quebec Nordiques. I don't know who it is on 30 Rock's staff that is such a puckhead, but the advertising department for The NHL on NBC needs to tap them for ideas, stat.
 |
Like PDL on Facebook |  |
Follow PDL on Twitter | | Email PDL |
@hildymac I watched the Super Bowl pretty closely and I saw ZERO hockey ads or even mentions. Plenty of ads for NBC primetime shows tho.
@icetheoffice I just wanted to make sure. I swear I didn't see any, but I could have been wrong.
@hildymac Certainly don't remember seeing any hockey ads from what I saw. That Budweiser one was Canada only.
@hildymac It was probably only for the Super Bowl, because they pluged NHL and MLB during regular season and playoffs.
@HawksBearsCubs The league really should have looked at some way around that when getting a deal with any network.
@HawksBearsCubs That's asinine. It's not like a few hockey ads'll siphon viewership away from the NFL in any market in the US.
@HawksBearsCubs Stands to reason. I was still pretty flabbergasted that they just ran the one ad for their own network, too, apparently.
@HawksBearsCubs I would assume that would be it, because that is a big market to miss out on. But they aired NFL stuff during the NHL game.
@hildymac I obviously didn't see it but I had multiple American friends say they didn't see one.
@hildymac lol We really didn't have that many.. Not that I noticed anyway.. Tons for "Smash" but I've gone numb to those as well.
@hildymac lol Ladies need eye candy once in a while as well & it gave me a chance to sneak away a few extra wings while she was distracted
@GameTimeArt David Beckham's ad was such a counter balance to some of the others. It made guys pretty uncomfortable, I think.
@hildymac We got a couple.. David Beckham's.. most of the movie trailers.. We had some decent Canadian ones though too..
@GameTimeArt I'm surprised some of the advertisers that had ads on NBC at least wouldn't get a few of the ads on Canadian TV.
I'll openly admit, the only Superbowl commercial that I watched was the one that didn't air here. That said, though, not only is it a shame that NBC didn't spend any time pitching it's still-ongoing product for the season, but it's something that the investors should look at and see if they're actually getting their money's worth. When you're spending two billion dollars on something, simple financial sense dictates that you at least try to interest people in it, to recoup the cost if nothing else.
That said, some of NBCSN's choices when it comes to what to broadcast as the national game have been... questionable, to put it kindly. Maybe I'm misapprehending the impact of star power on viewership (or maybe they are), but isn't a 2v5 conference matchup generally more intriguing than a cross-conference game, or a game of teams further down the standings? For instance, Detroit/Phoenix tonight is about the best they could do. But LA/Tampa (7 west vs 11 east)? When they could have NYR/NJ (1v6 east), STL/OTT (5 west vs 7 east), or VAN/NSH (2v4 west)?
@gogolism are you surprised they even made the thought process in planning commercial blocks? I am
@mike_lumsden considering NBC put a substantial amount of $$ into NHL deal you'd think they'd promo at least as hard as The Voice or whatevs
@gogolism That is BRUTAL. The Voice, not the NHL disrespect. Considering most american NHL fans think Ryan Nugent-Hopkins is a law firm
@mike_lumsden but yes brutal. The whole thing almost made me believe that the US has run out of ideas. All 300 million of us.
@mike_lumsden lol I would totally go to a law firm called RNH: "We have filthy skills... In the courtroom."
@mike_lumsden ugh. It was all a mess except for the game itself: the commercials, the half time show. Awful.
@gogolism We don't get any of the commercials. All we got was an oscars commercial and CTV new show plugs. I wanted to explode.
