Marble: The official cheese of Kliff's Notes

Are you going to go out and buy a block of marble cheese now that you know it is the "Official Cheese" of the world-famous Kliff's Notes blog???

No? Well...shit. Good thing the cheese people aren't paying me then I guess.

This blog post is based on me walking into my local Subway and noticing on the door that Subway is now the "Official Sandwich of the BC Lions". I almost turned around and left, more because I dislike the CFL and the BC Lions than the sandwich shop itself. But do sponsorship dollars, like Subway no doubt had to spend to get this lofty title, spent on these type of sponsorships really work? Will I ultimately buy Gillette deodorant because it is the "Deodorant of the NHL"? Nope, not a chance.

Now there are obviously other parts to these sponsorship deals - exclusive mention on team/league websites, programming, etc. - but the whole "Official so and so" seems like such a joke way to explain things. Sponsorship that is more directly related to the sport/league/event makes sense to me, ie. "Blackberry, the official way to act like your working when really your sitting on your ass eating cheetos" or "Depends, the official diaper of long bowling" works fine for me. But the official sandwich of a football team? Nope, I just don't care.

TWEET! 2 Minutes for Greed

Let me preface this post by saying I am a huge hockey fan and have been my whole life. I have played the game since I was 6 years old and I hold season tickets to the Vancouver Canucks, my local National Hockey League team. Needless to say, I am a devout hockey lover.

Well, the NHL needs to change things. They have no business plan except make as much money as possible, as quickly as possible. Which in the long run is not going to pay off for them. Let me backtrack before I go off on a big rant here. It was announced today that the NHL signed a contract to air games in Asia........huh?

No offense or anything but maybe you should spend some money on growing the game in North America before you charge all over the globe. I believe the term is walk before you run, or perhaps baby steps. The NHL was greedy enough to expand to such non-hockey markets as North Carolina, Tampa Bay, Atlanta, Nashville, and Columbus. None of these towns have turned into hockey markets, shocking I know. So the game is obviously not being picked up in one of the largest markets in the world, which also happens to have cities like Detroit, New York, and Minnesota that are in love with their hockey teams and have great knowledge of the game. So why not walk before you run NHL? Why not build the game in the U.S. before you charge all over the world? Why not work on what should be a more welcome audience open to the concept of hockey than one in China, which doesn't really have any exposure to the game? Build a nice core following, you already have one in Canada and part of the states, you should have an easier time working on the hesitant areas of the U.S.

No there is nothing wrong behind making money, in fact it is encouraged. But you have to set aside the greed and realize that by building your base, it makes expansion a lot better and you have more evangelists and product lovers to spread the word. The NHL in my opinion just has no concept of what it is doing. It is like a hungry hippo just trying to grab as many little bags of money as it can before everything implodes on it.....and unfortunately it will, it's inevitable at this pace.