Are the Canucks Even Marketable Anymore?
It's 2003, the West Coast Express is riding the high after an epic season; Markus Naslund and Todd Bertuzzi are 2nd and 4th in league scoring and the Canucks have never been hotter. The meteoric rise of popularity for the Canucks continued to reach new heights all the way to the 2011 Stanley Cup Final. The Canucks were a marketer's dream; they could do no wrong and despite soaring face value prices and aftermarket prices for tickets, the Canucks were IT.
Fast forward a few years later to present day 2015 and we aren't in Kansas anymore. Do you even know what channel they're on?
There has been much talk about how the Canucks TV ratings have dropped substantially and this really isn't surprising at all.
New @CanucksArmy: https://t.co/EqpcFe1ZSF Report: #Canucks regional broadcast ratings down 27 percent this season. pic.twitter.com/N06yjCkg5W
— Thomas Drance (@ThomasDrance) December 14, 2015
The train has been slowly coming off the tracks for some time now when the statistics are that blunt, there needs to be some serious thought put into efforts to get the once marketing wizards of the NHL back to it's rightful throne. The NHL and Rogers are a new superpower in Canada and that is one reason the Canucks are feeling the sting.
Gone is the regional feel to a Canucks broadcast, where intermissions are now flanked with Mark Messier commercials, Duncan Keith featurettes and the Hockey Central hub. It doesn't feel like an organic production anymore. Watching a game isn't personal and the online presence is also to blame. I personally don't subscribe to hockeystreams but know things like this and NHL Game Center live are the way of the future. Its not about the 60″ big screen anymore; people just want to see the game wherever they can.
But what are the Canucks doing, or rather NOT doing that has them grasping at straws to come up with an idea, any idea that fans can relate to and spend their money. The big sell for a segment of Canucks fans is the Throwback night in February when the Canucks will face the Leafs in their retro black 1994 skate jerseys. The team store has jersey and name/number tees but when they show you can only get a handful of players you know things are bad.
New in-store: Skate logo player t-shirts. pic.twitter.com/zH3CaDcOmx
— Canucks Team Store (@CanucksStore) December 8, 2015
Henrik and Daniel Sedin, Bo Horvat, Jake Virtanen and Brandon Sutter. WOW! Amazing! THIS is what you want to market? If this was 2010 heck even a few years ago when they FIRST started to fall, you'd have anyone with a remote fan following on those tees. I'm not even kidding. There were times when such players as Victor Oreskovich, Aaron Rome and Jeff Cowan all were in the merch business. You could sell ice to….wait I better not go there, even Edmonton is facing backlash for their football team name, who knows where I fall in.
I worked the sports retail industry for 10 years and the amount of Canucks products that was made available was sickening and coming from me, that's saying a lot. Does anyone even care anymore about the push to have Johnny Canuck as our logo? How in demand is the skate actually? I can't remember the last time I purchased something Canucks related. Is this really what it's come to?
Check out this Groupon ad (click HERE) This is a LIVE OFFER!!! Living in the lower mainland for the glory years, if that's what we want to call them because they really didn't win anything more than their division and a few Presidents trophys (congrats I guess), getting into Rogers Arena for less than $150 a duckett was considered a steal! Even if you were to go on a bus trip through a pub or knew a ticket broker, you still paid way more than you should have.
They're pretty much giving it away now. Their integrity is going with it. We all want so bad to back guys like Ben Hutton (#HUTTONmania), Jared McCann, Jake Virtanen and ya why not, Luca Sbisa. The old regime would have been all over these players to get them into the fold as the next ONES. Maybe I'm out of touch now that I live in the Okanagan but I doubt I'm too far off from the truth.
Management brought in the Ryan Millers, Radim Vrbatas…..that's about it. Oh man are we in trouble. The homegrown talent thankfully is marketable and they can make a difference but they have to have the light focused on them. Make them matter. It's two seasons in and we're all rethinking Bo Horvat. Are we crazy? Start pumping this guys tires Trev! I want to care but they make it so hard to even start that feeling.
My kids need to have every conceivable reason why they have to be Canucks fans but aside from the losses, which are fine in the grand scheme of things, what are they cheering for outside of the game? Every good parent has their kids draped in their teams wears but is this current setup worth buying into?
There isn't anything remotely marketable about this team. We all stick to the memories we have of the better times we once had but what is there to sell RIGHT NOW? They know there's a Star Wars movie coming out right? Have you seen how many hockey teams have had a Star Wars themed night? At least TRY to show you're interested in your fans.
Rogers Arena is 20 years old and to celebrate this amazing feat, ownership is celebrating 20 things that happened in that time. Nothing says Canucks hockey like the Grizzlies being honored…errr one Grizzly. We loved the West Coast Express, we really did so for approximately 5 minutes maybe…we honored them and then totally didn't care anymore. Great idea.
But if you DID want to see Nazzy, Bert and Mo and you lived on Vancouver Island and had NHL Game Center? Well you missed it. Even Geeta's Game Center didn't get it.
@Always90four @petbugs13 they blacked out WCE night on their own package, how you supposed to have viewers if they're blocked from watching
— Chas (@chazzwood01) December 14, 2015
Who honestly cares about this #20in20 ? Not me. The team isn't trying very hard to hold onto their fans. It's a building that nobody has won jack squat in and if you are celebrating some colossal failures and incidents we try to forget, maybe you should have waited until at least 25 years. Let's do a quick recap: Grizzlies, no Grizzlies, two lockouts, March 9, 2004, the Bruins, the Kings, ugh the Flames and high ticket prices. We did have the Olympics, those went well and obviously every time Nickelback comes to town.
Other than that, save the 20.
The momentum lights the team added on the stanchions were a nice touch but it isn't something to write home about. To a degree, some of these complaints are directed towards the conglomerate Rogers, but when you look at what the Canucks have done to combat their TV ratings for starters, they can't really help.
The team on the ice right now is not exciting at all. The Sedins are the only thing worth watching and they don't play every shift, even though Willie would do it if he could. The predictable back pass was tolerable when other things were happening but now its just dump and chase for 60 minutes, and lately its just dumping. A lot…of….dumping.
Are the Canucks stuck in a marketing limbo? It seems that way and there isn't one specific way they can get out of it. The on ice product is the first piece of the puzzle and that will have to continue to build for things to get even a little bit better. The team has to start taking some gambles in all aspects of their business and it may pay off and it may not but Canuck nation isn't used to a loser.
Its one thing to have a team that loses and eventually rebounds back; right now it feels like most people are indifferent about what happens to the Canucks. A Canadian hockey team should never get to that point. The Leafs are even going as far as changing their jerseys and primary logo…THE LEAFS!!
You've shown us that spending ridiculous amounts of cash for things we don't need or can afford is ok, so start doing that again. Get in touch with the fan base that got you to the pinnacle and start listening to them. This team had/has so much freaking potential but if they stay on this path, it's going to take a long, long time before we see anything close to what we loved so much, again.
I hate to be such a Debbie Downer but honestly, being sold on this team is so tough and its not just this year. I want to know the Canucks are doing everything they can to be MY team and not just one of the 30 teams playing hockey in the NHL.
I've asked way too many questions that probably have answered themselves and I know I've done some CAPITAL letters; but at the end of the day it comes down to this:
Come on Canucks, you're better than that.
Follow me on twitter: @always90four
Posted in Canucks, Hot Taeks, Rants, Stanley Cup Playoffs and tagged bo horvat, canucks, canucks twitter, johnny canuck, marketing fail, NHL, sedins, skate jersey, thomas drance on December 15, 2015 by always90four. Leave a comment
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