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Confirmed with Link: Ads Coming to Sabres Uniforms

Burgmania

Burgmania

Buffalo's Hockey Soundtrack
Apr 16, 2007
4,714
602
Buffalo, NY
Apologies if this should go in another thread, but I've just seen a Buffalo News article that has me sick.

Ads are coming to the Sabres sweaters. All of them.

buffalonews.com

While leading Bills stadium project, Legends to take on Sabres partnership

Legends will manage the search for a Sabres’ jersey patch sponsor, after the NHL for the first time this season began allowing patches on game-worn jerseys.
buffalonews.com buffalonews.com

The Above TBN Article said:
Legends will manage the search for a Sabres’ jersey patch sponsor, after the NHL for the first time this season began allowing patches on game-worn jerseys.

The jersey patch opportunity for a corporate sponsor is part of what is being called “The Royal Platform” – a nod to the Sabres’ royal blue jerseys – and will also include high impact assets inside KeyBank Center and signature community programs in Western New York.

The patches will be on all Sabres jerseys for this season – home and away blue and white jerseys and the “Goathead” third jersey.
Click to expand...

Enjoy the clean look while you can, folks. Guess it's a sign of the times . . . at least the ones I buy won't have the ad on them.

🤢🤮
 
Well when you are ONLY making 20 million in revenue because of unspent cap space, it is clearly not enough money to gas up a super yacht.
 
So they started with "just a little ad on the helmet"....Now the jersey....You know it's just a matter of time before they look like skating billboards like over In Europe...NHL you have no class.
 
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That's just the thin end of the wage. If this is what's coming, then the NHL can f*** right off.

1666988821413.png
 
Not surprised. Buffalo is one of the smallest NHL markets and larger markets than us have been doing it. It was only a matter of time.

I’m not crazy about the idea but don’t care that much. If it helps the team earn more profit and makes Buffalo a more viable market long term, I’m good with it.
 
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Ads are pretty gross, people also failing to mention in EU leagues with jersey ads they also have way less commercials. We will end up with the worst of both. #BuildAnotherYacht
 
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Sabre the Win said:
Well when you are ONLY making 20 million in revenue because of unspent cap space, it is clearly not enough money to gas up a super yacht.
Click to expand...

I mean, unspent cap space isn't revenue. They are just losing LESS every year.

VaporTrail said:
Thought Pegula would go drill a other well of he needed money ? What a sell out...Today's society is all about money and greed...It sucks.
Click to expand...

I mean, they don't need to drill a well. their net worth (at least, if Forbes is an accurate gauge of net worth) went from 5.4 to 5.8B last year. They can essentially write off the Sabres losses with appreciation of their assets if they choose to.

I'm not begrudging them maximizing their revenue. And ads on the jersey's, while annoying, is something every fan base is dealing with.

Heck, I'm not even that upset that they are spending at the cap floor again. I mean, it's going to bite the time in the ass because they could have smartly spent to improve the team more than they did, but I don't think spending 7 or 8M more is going to make them a playoff team.

The most blatant and egregious thing they have done is laying off people during the pandemic. There wasn't any reason for it other than to save a relatively small amount of money when they already have more than they or their grandkids can spend in their lifetimes. They sure like the call Buffaloians a family when it comes to selling merch or asking the state for money for their new stadium, but don't treat them like family when it means spending out of their own pockets.
 
Dang, the Adelphia fraud thing was a mess. Then a bit later you get to make peace with the fact that the institution your rink had painted on at centre ice - their primary purpose was laundering drug monies. After that you stop noticing things and go numb.
 
Eh, it was always going to happen. it sucks, but people are still going to buy jerseys, so they'll keep looking for places to add ads. The real question is whther they will sell ad-free versions at the team store.
 
It doesn't bother me one bit, what really bothers me is that Legends is basically getting paid 6 figures or more to do something a legal intern could do.
 
f*** this all the way to Europe.

An NHL sweater, for a century, has been a symbol of the community. It's a more powerful piece of civic iconography than your city flag or anything else you can think of. People wear it across the continent to say, here's where I'm from, these are my people.

It is now an advertisement. And no, there is no such thing as a small advertisement. Change just one star on the flag to a McDonald's logo, its meaning is voided. That sponsor pays for the negative space next to their patch. They pay for the close association with the logo you love. They might even make less money on a jersey full of ads than one well placed mark.

Outside of that symbol, the team is nothing. It's not the players. They change and you cheer the new ones. It's not the management or the ownership. It's not even the arena. A new franchise sells for $600m for the sole right to create a symbol that is placed alongside the most cherished symbols on the continent, and that's all they get -- that doesn't build an arena or pay staff. They sell that symbol for a few bucks, they sell the franchise.

There's other hockey out there that's just as entertaining. This is bullshit.
 
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It's happening a little in slow motion, but I have to say that after the anger fades, what's left is largely disinterest. That's how I'm feeling about the RBC Lion Cartographers up here in MTL, where I adopted my second team a few years back when I moved.

You got 25 years of my attention because you offered something that purported, at least, to represent my community. That mattered. There was no other sane reason to watch through the last decade. The symbolism is that big.

You drop even a noble pretense at that, who the f*** cares? Go play in Europe, go play for hire on a tour like the Globetrotters, go play wherever they offer the most on a night by night basis. Because you're not my team when you're a corporate mascot. It's not that I'm furious that I'll have to root for an ad. It's that rooting for an ad just doesn't really tempt me.
 
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haseoke39 said:
It's happening a little in slow motion, but I have to say that after the anger fades, what's left is largely disinterest. That's how I'm feeling about the RBC Lion Cartographers up here in MTL, where I adopted my second team a few years back when I moved.

You got 25 years of my attention because you offered something that purported, at least, to represent my community. That mattered. There was no other sane reason to watch through the last decade. The symbolism is that big.

You drop even a noble pretense at that, who the f*** cares? Go play in Europe, go play for hire on a tour like the Globetrotters, go play wherever they offer the most on a night by night basis. Because you're not my team when you're a corporate mascot. It's not that I'm furious that I'll have to root for an ad. It's that rooting for an ad just doesn't really tempt me.
Click to expand...

Go Buffalo KeyBanks!!
 
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The slow degradation of watching the sport continues, the game has done everything possible to take my eyeballs off of the screen during the game. I mute/click away during the icing ads, I actively look away from the boards, and I for the most part tune out for anything other than the play on the ice, mostly/entirely because of there are so many ads I get a headache otherwise.

Seriously, watching old games from the 2000s or 1990s just feels so much less oppressive, right now it's just all too much for a sport that is not hurting for money.

Add up all of the things which make the game so much less enjoyable lately, including the offside reviews, gambling everything shoved in your face, ads on jerseys, ads on boards, digital ads on boards, game management from the referees, etc.

It's becoming nearly unwatchable in the same way that I can't watch football. It's overstuffed and the substance is just not enough to justify the high soul crushing cost of being bombarded with corporations wanting my money. f*** this decision in every way that it can be f***ed.
 
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The NHL, if you add up the values of all the franchises, is about a $30B business.

If every player in the NHLPA died in a cruise ship accident, it would still be a $30B business. They'd be replaced. Fans wouldn't know the difference as soon as teams more or less integrated them and found some competitive balance. A competitive game with the next 700 or so best players on earth is not less entertaining. It really isn't.

If every owner sold and every management team was replaced, it would still be a $30B business.

If every arena imploded, it would still be a $30B business, give or take a couple years for construction.

What's worth $30B is the fiction that these teams represent their cities. It's the loyalty of a North American fanbase that invests them with that view. That's what makes the lowest of them millionaires rather than working a second job.

The Aldi's Pricesavers vs. the CapitalOne Rewards is not a $30B business, even if every other element of the game was held constant.

Many fans won't notice a fundamental difference here when the jersey itself becomes an ad. But for me, it's 2022. I'm used to being the product. I'm very aware of living in an economy where every microsecond of my attention is being bid for. And when I see an ad skating at me, I deflect my attention. I know there are other ads around the rink. None of them are pretending to hold my loyalty. None of those are supplanting the actual product. This one does. This one matters. And this one undermines a vastly profitable business for the cheapest f***ing payout imaginable.
 
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WeDislikeEich said:
Not surprised. Buffalo is one of the smallest NHL markets and larger markets than us have been doing it. It was only a matter of time.

I’m not crazy about the idea but don’t care that much. If it helps the team earn more profit and makes Buffalo a more viable market long term, I’m good with it.
Click to expand...
Who the f*** cares if Buffalo is a viable market for leeches? Yeah, you're viable to get your wallet stolen. Good for you.
 
I guess I don't understand why people treat the uniform as sacred space, when there are already ads plastered on the ice, on the boards, in the corner of the screen, read aloud during game action etc..

I mean, I wish they wouldn't do it...it's pretty ridiculous that I have to pay for a subscription service to watch the game, then they fill the screen with ads, and they still stop the game three times a period to run commercials. But live sports are one of the few things left where people will actually watch commercials, so I guess this is where we're at.

European sports fans for whatever reason are more tolerant than North Americans when it comes to ads on uniforms (I'm guessing it's the standard set by Premier League football, but who knows), so I'm not too worried that NHL sweaters will end up looking like the Euro leagues. The NBA has ads on their jerseys that don't bother me, and the ads on helmets in the NHL the last couple years weren't really a distraction either.

But even if they do go full-Nascar, it will never be as bothersome as the flashing digital ads on the boards, or the promos the announcers read as the game is going on. (No I will not love my Rachel's too, Dan. Rachel can f*ck right off for making me listen to that stupid-@ss line for the last however many goddamn years.)
 
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I don’t like it. Jerseys should be left alone. Some major stadia with historic names should be left alone. We have a ground in my city that is used for cricket. Years ago a major company bid to win the naming rights just to make sure it wasn’t changed. Other companies had been bidding and trying to rename it but luckily they lost.

The All-Blacks jersey went from this with no sponsorship (although other versions did have the jersey supplier’s logo on it in small)

1667166629575.jpeg


to this

1667166449179.jpeg

AIG putting their logo front and centre went down like a wasp sandwich here.
 
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