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| LaBroad |
With goal scoring back up and a salary cap on the books, the next thing on the NHL agenda is increasing the popularity of the sport. That falls on the shoulders of chief marketing officer Michael LaBroad, who joined the league last month. A season-ticket holder of the St. Louis Blues and a New England native who grew up around hockey, LaBroad brings a passion for the game but with a marketer’s eye.Staff writer Andy Bernstein sat down with LaBroad over Peronis — Budweiser wasn’t on the menu — at a midtown Manhattan restaurant to talk about how he plans to get sports fans turned on to hockey.
What do you see as your role in the NHL?
LaBroad: My role is really to grow the sport. We look at that from a variety of ways. Ratings have to increase. It’s one of the critical elements. I look at in-building attendance and the fan base locally and how we increase that, and also the ancillary sales of merchandise and licensed items and equipment. I’ve always been a practical marketer who won’t say I want to increase our ad awareness or our likability. You have to really go back to the measures of success. If ratings aren’t improving, the market is failing.
Your background is in beer and retail. In what ways is that similar to marketing a sports league, and in what ways is it different?
| Snapshot: Michael LaBroad |
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| Title: Chief marketing officer | | League: NHL | | Age: 48 | | Family: Wife, Susan; sons Shane, 18, and Zachary, 10; daughter Jordan, 15 | | Background: Spent 23 years at Anheuser-Busch, much of it as brand manager for Budweiser, before a one-year stint with Bass Pro Shops. | | Personal: Owns season tickets to the St. Louis Blues, and plays hockey and golf regularly. Is on the board of several charitable organizations. |
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LaBroad: What I’ve done with my career is I’ve tried to understand consumers. When I was at Budweiser, it was a 21- to 48-year-old male primarily — Hispanic, black, white. I studied their behaviors and how you motivate them to action. It wasn’t that I understood the beer business so great, it was that I understood 21- to 48-year-old males. I then worked within the theme park division [Busch Gardens], which really turned my marketing world upside down because it was driven by families and females, who are the primary decision makers on vacations and trips. I had to study a different consumer base. When I was at Bass Pro [Shops] they had an appreciation for what I could bring to them because of my understanding of men 21-48. I think that’s where the sports and beer market link really well. If you understand how to market a beer to that group, you can also figure out how to do it within sport.
In terms of understanding that male 21-48 consumer, what have you found about the hockey audience?
LaBroad: What I love about them is the passion. It’s rare that you meet a hockey fan that’s casual. They’re either all in or they’re not in at all. If you look at some of the other major sports in the U.S., they have a sizable casual base who will watch the Super Bowl as their sole football event of the year. Whereas hockey has a very core nucleus of avid fans. The opportunity is with the casual fan and can we expand the casual fan base.
What do you think you will need to do to get that done? What will connect with people who aren’t that interested in hockey?
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Hockey will use TV beyond game broadcasts to make
its players’ faces stand out in the crowd. |
LaBroad: If you look at what they do with the Olympics, it’s a great example. If I said luge or bobsledding or another event and asked you to name a participant in it, you couldn’t. But by creating and bringing forward the athletes and giving us profiles on them, you and I will develop a connection with them in some ways. Once you find what those links are, you have an interest in that person and they bring you into whatever their interest is. In the past, we’ve promoted the game and the team. The future growth of the NHL is really going to be based upon people creating a link to an individual — a player — and then becoming fans of a team beyond that. It’s backwards from the way things have been done in the past.
What is the avenue to get people aware of players? If they’re not watching games, how do you have them find out about all these individual characteristics of players?
LaBroad: TV is still an important aspect. If you look at our TV ads for the Stanley Cup playoffs, integrating the players, their faces, the leadership aspects, the skill aspects. We’re just beginning that, but if you look out into time, you’re going to see us really pushing the players forward, and not just in our broadcasts. Because, preaching to the choir, if all we do is within our own broadcasts, we’re talking to the same passionate fans who already get it. The Stanley Cup playoffs we plan to advertise throughout all of cable television — on NBC within a run of their schedule, on OLN’s other programming to really start building an awareness of our players, and we really think that’s the way of the future.
Let’s get back to reaching new fans. As long as I’ve covered the sport, I’ve seen it go back and forth. Some years ago, there was a push to bring in new fans. Then there was a push to get avid fans to activate more — to watch more games, to watch the national games and not just their hometown games. Why now back to new fans?
LaBroad: As I look at the market, I see three different interests in the sport. Avids that have a tremendous consumption level — watch it, attend it, have the jersey autographed, the whole thing. You see casual fans, which is probably 60 percent, who are aware of the sport, follow it sometimes, would watch it on TV if they came across it and if invited would attend the games. Then you have the no fans. I think the opportunity the NHL is looking for is to convert the casual fans to avids and the no fans to casuals. You want to do both those things without irritating or upsetting the avid fans.
What’s the potential for the NHL to use video games and fantasy leagues as another avenue to educate fans about players, about teams?
LaBroad: My son is heavily involved with the gaming aspect on the Sony PlayStation platform. He knows every player in the league based upon that. … I think that’s an opportunity because those are really becoming the trading cards of the future.
