How exactly does a marketing guy for a European hockey team go Christian Louboutinabout selling the back of the thigh to an advertiser? Yah, both armpits are sold old; can I interest you in something slightly below the buttocks?USA Today has a story this morning that NHL jerseystakes the temperature of professional sports leagues and their flirtation with covering uniforms with advertisements. Mostly, it covers the slow encroachment of commercial space on practice jerseys in the NBA and NFL, along with the WNBA's decision to allow ads on game jerseys this season. But it seems to point to the NBA one day placing logos and Ed Hardyslogans from sponsors on its uniforms, and also includes this chilling quote from the land of puck:NHL chief operating officer John Collins says the league might put ads on game jerseys for the right price.Catch your breath for a moment. I worked for a publisher back in my newspaper days that used to say suction cupsthe same thing about selling the entire cover of the paper to a single advertiser ... for $10 million. If the local carpet cleaning business felt the urge to drop that kind of money to captivate a suburban Virginia audience for a week, she'd at least listen, right?But there's a big difference between listening and implementing; between might and will. We hope the lure of ad revenue won't one day win out over maintaining the sanctity of the uniform. But we're not exactly optimistic about NHL jerseys remaining ad-free in the coming years. The NHL has, over the years, placed advertising on everything it can: the arena, the ice, the boards, the curtain in front of which coaches and players give interviews. Remember earlier this month when I asked which Cup winning team had the worst jersey? There were definitely some bad ones, with the Kenora Thistles and (the original) Ottawa Senators as the front runners. But no team has had jerseys as consistently bad as the Vancouver Canucks.Now, as Canuck progeny,buy wow gold I'm not bashing my heritage ... I just wonder how you encapsulate in logo-form what it means to be Canadian. The Maple Leafs and the Habs have done a pretty good job. Simple is best. But I don't think the Vancouver stick-in-rink logo quite gets it done.NEW YORK POST is a registered trademark of NYP Holdings, Inc. NYPOST.COM, NYPOSTONLINE.COM, and NEWYORKPOST.COM are trademarks of NYP Holdings, Inc.Copyright 2008 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.When body checking was first introduced in hockey coaches taught their players not to hit players from behind because it could cause seriously injury. Most leagues in Canada had stop signs sponsored by McDonald's stitched on the back of every hockey players jersey. They were put there so other players would remember that if the Stop sign was facing them they should not check. |