HockeyKnight on Twitch

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Molson Coors Hits New High Water Mark for NHL Sponsorships

Once again, showing the viability of the NHL, they've just agreed to a record breaking endorsement deal with the mega brewery Molson Coors company.
Terms of the seven-year deal weren't disclosed, but a source with knowledge of negotiations said it came in at slightly more than US$375 million.
I am really excited to see news stories like this because it shows to a lot of skeptical media pundits and other hateful critics of Gary Bettman that they do have a ton of challenges that lie ahead.

The praise has been very glowing for this kind of a deal.
"It's a monster deal," NHL chief operating officer John Collins said in an interview. "They're going to have major position across all of our events -- both our existing events as well as a lot of new ones that we hope to create."
Molson has been associated with advertising in hockey for many years and most prominently when they called the arena in Montreal the Molson Centre.

However, not everyone, including me were all that ecstatic about the choice in official beer brand of the NHL. Labatt Blue had been the brand that had been paying for the commercial rights.
Labatt Breweries of Canada expressed its dissatisfaction at being left out in the cold, saying it had been told by the NHL that the league intends to terminate their relationship at the end of June.
The Labatt company who was left holding the bag claims that they were brushed aside suddenly when they understood things between the NHL and them were copacetic.
"Labatt has been the official beer sponsor of the NHL in Canada for more than a decade and we began sponsorship renewal negotiations with the league several months ago to secure sponsorship rights," Charlie Angelakos, Labatt's vice-president of corporate affairs, said in a release.
There is an underlining story that none of the people in the mainstream media has picked up on, Labatts had previously supported the "make it seven" campaign headed by rogue hockey fan and carpetbagger Canadian Jim Basille in 2009. Could that have put Labatts on the outs when the NHL brass mapped out the decision weather not to renew the Labatt contract?

[Via: Rogers Sportsnet]

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

good....good...