A Platinum Anniversary

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is every bit as arrogant and even more smug than he appears.  He is one of those people who smirks at his own jokes even as they fall horribly flat, and he always thinks he is the smartest person in the room.  But the little secret is that Bettman might just actually be the smartest person in the room, and he’s got a nearly 20 year record to prove it.

That’s right.  Difficult as it is to believe, Bettman will celebrate his 20^th anniversary is the NHL’s commissioner in the coming season, and it’s hard to argue that the league has ever been in better financial position, at least not if we measure it in a modern way.

(As an aside, I know the man.  We had several interactions when I was on the media side of the business, the most unpleasant of which was when I broke a story that contradicted the NHL’s public relations stance.  He publicly scolded me, by name even, and fairly trashed me in official statements.  Two days later, when my story turned out to be 100% right, he apologized in a private phone call and admitted that he knew I was right, but I had information before the league was ready to release it.  He never apologized publicly).

First, there’s the league’s position regarding media.  They spurned – or depending on your point of view, were spurned by – ESPN, and that allowed them to take an aggressive strategy.  The NHL wanted to be the feature product on a network and so branched out to low-rated, hard-to-find Versus, a network that was best known for airing bicycle races.  While they had some stumbling blocks in the early years of that deal, the NHL has been perhaps the single biggest beneficiary of the NBC/Comcast merger because they are the primary tenant of that air space, with every single playoff game now airing on that family of sports networks.  Similarly, they have done the best job of activating in digital spaces.  Of the major professional American leagues, they have been the best at creating two-way conversations through their website, mobile pages, exclusive TV packages, Facebook pages and twitter accounts on both a league and individual team level. 

Yes, TV ratings were down for the playoffs (and way down for the Stanley Cup Finals), but the positioning is strong, especially when you consider one of Bettman’s other accomplishments, which is the creation of tent pole items around which the league can build sponsorships, such as the Winter Classic, the Premiere Games, the All-Star Weekend and the Playoffs.  Big brands want to associate with the NHL, in part because its audience is young, affluent and media-adept in ways in which the fans of other leagues maybe are not.  The league has locked up its broadcast partner for 10 years, and other sponsors like Pepsi, MillerCoors and Geico to long-term deals as well.  Smaller business and brands are getting involved in NHL activation as well, at a national and market level, enthralled by the alternative positioning of the league.

Most importantly, revenues are up.  WAY up.  In the first year after the lost season of the NHL lockout, the NHL brought in 2.2 billion dollars in revenue.  Last year, even amidst the recession, the league had increased that by half, bringing in 3.3 billion dollars.  More than one-third of that comes from straight ticket sales, and the growth occurred in a recession.

It’s not all wine and roses.   The league is a distant fourth among the American power sports.   There are still too many unstable franchises.  And the CBA expires in September, raising the specter that there could be a third work stoppage under Bettman’s tenure.  But the health of the league has put a positive tone on the early negotiations.  It’s taken 20 years, but almost all of the indicators are pointing in the right direction.

I may end up having to like the guy.