Prediction — it won’t be long before the logo of some massive corporate entity replaces the beloved Oil Drop crest on the front of the Edmonton Oilers uniform. I give it 20 years at most. A smaller Oilers crest will still be there, maybe stitched over the heart of each player, but the large logo front and centre on each jersey will be a paid advertisement from a corporate sponsor.
The Oilers took another step in this direction this week. The team announced that a small corporate logo for Play Alberta, the provincial gambling corporation, will be stitched onto the upper left breast area of Oilers uniforms this season.
The Oilers are following the trend of the vast majority of NHL teams, a change in jerseys that the league’s head office first permitted for the 2022-’23 season. Fans of early-adopting teams reacted with outrage, wondering if NHL players would soon look like NASCAR drivers or European hockey players, their uniforms plastered with ads.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly attempted to assure fans, telling ESPN that “there’s been no discussion or consideration about expanding the patch program.”
But I can’t see this trend reversing, not so long as money and profit are the organizing principle in a world of scarcity. Why would pro sports owners in North America turn down the tens of millions of dollars that European football clubs now get annually for jersey sponsorship? Real Madrid rakes in 190 million Euros for kit and jersey sponsorship each year, Statisa reports, with Barcelona at 175 million and Manchester United at 143 million. That means Manchester’s famous Red Devil crest is small on the jersey but the logo of corporate sponsor Snapdragon is large and central, just the same as all the other big Euro corporate sponsors.
The slope is already slipping in the NHL. First came arena naming rights, then ads on the boards and the ice then, in 2020-21, in response to the NHL’s financial woes due to COVID restrictions that banned fans from buildings for more than one year, came ads on player helmets. I can’t recall many peeps of protest about the helmet ads, but news of the Play Alberta jersey ads rile up many Oilers fans.
Of course, some fans aren’t bothered at all. But the majority appear to be against it.
Some dislike the gambling aspect of the sponsorship.
“Shameful,” said one fan, Dave Champion. “Gambling is an epidemic and you’re now fully advertising it to kids.”
Many saw the ad akin to desecrating something sacred in the Oilers sweater.
“No one likes this except for the people who make money off of it,” Rob Rollingson said. “It sucks to see a jersey that is held as precious and sacred to many fans defiled in the name of unbridled wealth.”
What to make of the controversy?
I don’t hear a general public outcry against gambling or gambling advertisements. The 50/50 draw at Oiler games is beloved. The Oilers took pains in their jersey announcement to say all money generated by Play Alberta goes into Alberta government general revenues, contributing $235 million this past year, part of Alberta’s $1.5 billion in gaming revenue.
At the same time, the more gambling is normalized and advertised, the more people will gamble, with a significant number becoming addicts, correct?
This is the age of legalized vice, with everything from narcotics and gambling to porn and sugary treats now readily available. Each vice will drag down some. But we are evidently resigned, content even, to pick winners and losers by each individual’s ability to avoid getting addicted to an activity that will destroy their physical and/or psychological health. Is this not a risky path, one designed for increasing numbers of people to crash?
I’d be OK with restricting gaming advertisements in Canada, just as we do with smoking, liquor and pharmaceuticals, but I’m not sure this would cut down on gambling in the face of a worldwide online industry. We are left to save ourselves and those closest to us.
As for ads in general degrading the sacredness of the Oilers sweater, I get that notion. Hockey is my idol, the Oilers my tribe. I love it that Mark Messier berated a teammate who carelessly tossed his sweater on the floor, instead of respectfully hanging it up.
I’m bothered when the pure hockey experience gets watered down. At the same time I note that the fan cults around Real Madrid, Barcelona and Manchester United are as large and fervent as ever, even with corporate logos on the jersey fronts. I can’t see how the trend will be any different in hockey.