The Winter Classic With NHL’s Schuyler Baehman

NHL Digest recently had the honor of picking the mind of the man responsible for all of the great communication strategies from the National Hockey League.  Schuyler Baehman is the Manger of Communications for the NHL and one of the minds behind the great marketing and communications that we are witnessing from the league this season.

Mr. Baehman has taken a great amount of time and effort to provide us with some very insightful and revealing commentary on the National Hockey League, so please enjoy the interview.

As Manager of Communications for the NHL, what have been your main priorities for the 2008-2009 season?

My job remains the same every day of every season – to raise awareness of the National Hockey League and its players through media relations.  The amazing men who play the game at its highest level, and the legion of men and women off the ice, be they fans, family, team/League employees or otherwise make it enjoyable job.

We have seen vast improvements in terms of the NHL.com website, what have been the analytical results of those changes in terms of visitors, page views and length of time on the site?

We have seen an increase in virtually every key metric of fan engagement.  However, beyond the traditional metrics, the new site enables us to super-serve fans, particularly displaced ones, by learning more about them and personalizing their experience on the site both actively (serving content based on their favorite team) and passively (over time, serving content based on their behavior).

Fans have heard that the NHL will be promoting another free night of NHL GameCenter Live at the start of January.  Do you have any information on when exactly that might be and if there will be an opportunity to purchase a partial season package at that time?

My sources tell me that the free trial will be in early January and that there is likely to be promotions around partial season plans.  It will be announced shortly.

Speaking of January, the Winter Classic is set for New Years day in Chicago between the Blackhawks and the Red Wings.  What can fans expect from the NHL as far as the events and promotion leading up to the game?

You mean the Winter Classic between the Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings at Wrigley Field on New Year’s Day at 1 p.m.  ET on NBC in the U.S. and CBC and RDS in Canada?

Promotion is already well underway, across all of our platforms.  The Winter Classic celebrates what hockey is all about.  This event brings us back to the way hockey was born.  And we want as many people as possible to share in the experience, be it at the game or on television.

As far as promotion, the Winter Classic campaign, which debuted on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” on Nov. 30 is in heavy rotation.  My colleague Mike DiLorenzo just completed a very successful first phase of “The road to the NHL Winter Classic” truck tour (which you can read about here).

NHL.com has a microsite dedicated to the Winter Classic, NHL Network will televise the practices on Dec. 31 live beginning at Noon ET, NHL Radio will have scores of interviews leading up to the game, The Hockey Show will be in Chicago for about a week leading up to the game.  I could go on and on.

Fans outside of Chicago and Detroit are not being left out.  They are already seeing promotions and giveaways in their own buildings.  The other 28 teams recognize that as hockey fans the Winter Classic is our game, our history and goes beyond the two teams playing.

You can tell the players are really starting to get into it as well as evidenced by the wearing of the Winter Classic team toques in the warm-ups of the Dec. 6^th Blackhawks-Red Wings game.

Reebok is running a unique contest for both U.S. television viewers and in-stadium attendees that challenges fans to find the NHL player who is missing the Reebok logo from his jersey.   Each winner will receive a Stanley Cup trip for four, including airfare, hotel accommodations, ground transportation, and tickets to a Stanley Cup Final Game.

I have only scratched the surface on all of the things being done for this game.

With last season’s Winter Classic drawing 70,000 plus fans, ending with a shootout, and snowfall adding to the “Holiday pond-hockey” feel of the game, is there any way the 2009 Winter Classic could be even better?

Yes, but it’s not really about being better.  The Winter Classic is all about hockey fans – fans of every team – coming together on New Year’s Day and celebrating the game we love.

No matter the weather or the outcome, I expect NHL Winter Classic 2009 to be every bit the celebration of hockey that last year’s was.

It was originally thought that this season’s edition of the Winter Classic would be held in New York.  However, it was recently learned that Chicago, led by former Cubs President John McDonough, made a serious and persistent pitch to the league beginning last January in order for Wrigley field to acquire this game.  What were the determining factors for hosting the game in Chicago?

There is no shortage of factors that contribute to the selection of Chicago as the site for NHL Winter Classic 2009.

You touched on one very important factor: John McDonough.  He is a case study on effective leadership and someone I have been admiring professionally from afar for quite a while.

More than that, Chicago is a bastion of passionate sports fans, passionate Blackhawks fans, a great city that rallies around great events.

The renaissance of the entire Blackhawks franchise is an incredible story and one that continues to resonate.  Coming from where they were just 2 seasons ago to currently leading the League in attendance in remarkable.  Having the Winter Classic play a role in that transformation was attractive.

Additionally, the opportunity to play the game in a facility as iconic as Wrigley Field was very appealing.  That is sacred sports real estate.

In his comments this summer, Commissioner Bettman acknowledged the interest and efforts of the New York Yankees and the City of New York of hosting the event.  He has stated publicly that discussions will continue regarding the possibility of playing a future Winter Classic at Yankee Stadium.  Weather that is next year, or the year after or the year after remains to be seen.

One other note on Chicago:  I have read/heard some misguided and uninformed comments about the game being at Wrigley Field and not Soldier Field.  Considerable resources and time were spent examining the possibility of playing the Winter Classic at Soldier Field.   The fact that New Year’s Day is on a Thursday this year precluded the Winter Classic from being played at Soldier Field.  Per NFL rules, teams must make their stadium available to host a first-round playoff game on Saturday, January 3^rd (Remember, the NFL schedule was set well in advance of the selection process).

Again, after lengthy discussion, it was agreed by all parties involved that it was too great a risk that Soldier Field would not be in proper condition to host a playoff game two days after the Winter Classic.

As it is, an NHL game played at Wrigley Field will be a once-in-a-lifetime event.

With respect to next season’s Winter Classic and the media build up to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, do you anticipate any detraction from the excitement that has been generated around the NHL’s event?

Anyone who tells you that they have information on NHL Winter Classic 2010 is lying to you.  No decisions have been made if in fact there will even be an event next season.  Like this year, the League will wait to see how the Winter Classic goes this year and determine what is in the best interests of the entire NHL going forward.

Players who have commented about participation in the Winter Classic often mention the experience that their friends and family have while attending the game. How has that aided the NHL’s positioning of the game as a holiday family event?

At its core, the Winter Classic is the ultimate shared experience among hockey fans.   The Winter Classic reminds us of the underlying spirit of the sport – it’s our weather, our challenges, even our hardships.  Who better to share that with than those who have been behind you since you first laced up your skates?

In a recent NHL.com column several Chicago Cubs have expressed their excitement about attending the game.  Are you aware of any other confirmed celebrity attendees for the Winter Classic?

These things are always subject to change because of busy schedules, but needless to say the magnitude of this event is drawing interest from boldface names around the country, including:

Vince Vaughn, Denis Leary, Billy Corrigan, Taylor Kitsch, Pat Sajak (big Caps fan: Read about Sajak’s Love for the Caps), William Petersen and the director John Hughes, among others.

Also, plans are in the works for a number of Chicago legends who have called Wrigley Field home to be at the Winter Classic.  I’ll withhold the names as not to ruin the surprise

What are some of the newer developments from the NHL’s Communications Department that fans might not yet know about?

Every new development we implement is designed to bring our fans closer to our players and the League than they have ever been before.

Like the entire League, we are being more aggressive in a number of different areas.  Not only are we using platforms such as Twitter and others to communicate directly with fans, but we are working closely with all of the content providers here at the NHL to deliver the type of stories, video and images that are fans are craving.   Here are some great video  examples of what I am talking about:

http://www.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?&id=23719
http://www.nhl.tv/team/console.jsp?&id=27979

This season we will be offering content around the All-Star Game and Stanley Cup Playoffs usually reserved for the media in the form of static guides to dynamic Web sites open to the public.  We beta tested this last year and are confident that it will be well received.

Last season we completely changed the way we approach the media availability of both the NHL All-Star Game and the Stanley Cup Final.  Fans for the first time saw live programming on NHL Network of each of those events.  Our redesign also allowed for live content for every outlet present, be they print, radio, television, online or whatever to better deliver our players to our fans.  The players involved in each event had high praise for how each was conducted.

One last new initiative that I don’t believe many fans are aware of was our successful Player Media Tour we had this summer.  As always, the goal is getting more exposure for our players.  So we gathered 14 top players in New York City for 2 days of commercial shoots, print interviews, television interviews, radio interviews, promotions, photo sessions and even a little bit of fun.

Fans likely have seen some of the things that resulted from the tour, such as the great “pictures come alive” marketing campaign that our marketing people came up with.  We also filmed the digital television PSA that has been running on NHL Network, took photos that were included in NHL Shop’s recent catalogs, shot the features where a player recalls his first goal that many fans saw across various platforms and even captured footage and interviews being used to promote the NHL Winter Classic.  I know I am leaving off a bunch of things, but I think you get the picture.

That was a big step forward for us, with larger steps to come in the future. I encourage fans to remain engaged with the NHL – it is a great time to be a hockey fan.

NHL Digest would like to sincerely thank the National Hockey League Communications department and Schuyler Baehman for the opportunity to share these insights with our readers.  For those who are interested, please leave your thoughts or questions in the comments.  Alternatively, you are able to contact Schuyler at the following:

Schuyler Baehman
Manager of Communications
National Hockey League
1185 Avenue of the Americas, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10036
sbaehman@nhl.com
twitter: @schuylerb