The PWHL, meanwhile, opened its first season under an ownership group including Guggenheim Partners CEO and Los Angeles Dodgers owner Mark Walter and tennis legend Billie Jean King. Its six teams in Boston, Minnesota, Montréal, New York, Ottawa, and Toronto set six attendance records for women’s hockey games, including a crowd of 21,105 for a Toronto-Montréal matchup at Montréal’s Bell Centre.
Despite bringing in more than 40 sponsors last year and broadcasting every game free on YouTube, the PWHL remains something of a mystery to potential brand partners. Going into the start of its second season Nov. 30, the league’s teams just received names and logos.
But Amy Scheer, the PWHL’s senior vice president of business operations, wants brands to know that roughly one out of every three of the league’s players is an Olympian and, according to Nielsen, 75% of the league’s fans know its sponsors—with 65% showing loyalty to those brands as a result.
That’s where Deep Blue and DBX take the ice.
“When you go out and you look to get partners for women’s sports, it’s not about selling. It’s about building partnerships; it’s about aligning with values, so I know that Laura could go out and authentically tell our story,” Scheer said.
Getting aggressive
The PWHL has a specific request of its sponsors: Help build the sport of hockey, get girls into hockey, and keep them there.
That’s garnered the league a host of “nontraditional” partners from disparate portions of the market.
The league started its first four-month season in January, but by Feb. 18, it had become enough of a draw to bring 19,285 fans to a Toronto-Montréal game at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. While in a suite having a conversation during a timeout, Scheer heard fans build to loud screams and cheers, looked up, and saw that the league had just announced a partnership with Mattel’s Barbie that led to in-game activations and a line of inspirational Barbie clothing for kids and adults.
The clothing line sold out in two days.
In March, the league announced a partnership with Molson that put its logo atop the numbers on the back of players’ jerseys—forcing their names to the bottom and preventing players with longer hair from covering their names. The campaign gained traction on social media and increased Molson’s sales by 6% during the time it ran.
