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In news to be met with a groan at best by fans, or risk temporarily outraging them until they move onto some other topic, the look of NHL players is about to change.
BREAKING: @NHL owners have approved jersey patches for the 2022-23 season. 3-inch x 3.5-inch ad space, so slightly bigger than the @NBA patches.
— Eben Novy-Williams (@novy_williams) August 17, 2021
More from me and @soshnick https://t.co/4zhrR8g4H5
Can confirm the @Sportico report that NHL will have ads on jerseys starting in the 2022-23 season. The league surveyed its teams, found the majority in favor and had a formal Board of Governors vote to approve.
— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) August 17, 2021
As seen in our picture header above with Samuel Poulin from a development camp in summer 2019, NHL teams have been putting ads on their practice jerseys for quite some time.
Last season, for 2020-21, another step forward was taken with a sponsor on the sides of the helmets. These blended in pretty well on the Penguins’ black and yellow helmets, but for some reason the PPG used their typical blue color scheme for the white away helmet in a pretty ugly clash of colors.
Looks like it at least fits in...
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Wut?
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Overall, ads on jerseys have become an inevitable next step of sponsorship, considering the team sells the naming rights to the stadium gates, the boards, on the scoreboard, for the beer stands and the party area, going to jerseys was always going to creep in. Especially after the move by the NBA, as usual the NHL follows a step or two behind most business decisions.
Given that almost all NHL teams reached agreements to place their building sponsor on their helmets, if that same mindset holds it would probably be an existing Penguin sponsor (PPG Paints, UPMC, 84 Lumber, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Rivers Casino, FedEx, PNC, Peoples, FNB, Highmark) that will be on the jersey.
Here’s another look from practices on what the jerseys could look like in action, the Pens had UPMC on their helmets and jerseys while practicing out of the UPMC sponsored practice arena (via penguins).
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Ideally, the color scheme will at least match the team colors in the future, but all those details remain to be seen for what won’t be implemented for 14 months anyways.
This should make a fun poll to see results on:
Poll
When it comes to NHL ads on jerseys, which category do you best fit in?
This poll is closed
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10%
I’m cool with it, anything for more league revenue
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16%
I don’t really care, it won’t effect me at all, with or without ads
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19%
It is a minor annoyance to me, don’t like it but what can ya do?
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12%
I don’t like the idea, but maybe it fades into normalcy after a while
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35%
I really don’t like it, and probably never will
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6%
I really dislike it to the point where this will impact how much I watch NHL hockey