NHL Draft at the Las Vegas Sphere—what marketers should know about venue’s first sporting event

Only days after completing a compelling Stanley Cup Final, the NHL is casting an eye to its future. The league’s annual draft, which aligns hockey amateurs with professional clubs for the first time, will be held at the Sphere in Las Vegas starting Friday. It will be the first sports event held at the futuristic arena—and the first event to be televised live from the venue. Round 1 of the draft airs on ESPN, ESPN+, Sportsnet and TVA Sports, starting at 7 p.m. ET. Rounds 2-7 will be televised Saturday on ESPN+, NHL Network, Sportsnet and SN1 starting at 11:30 a.m. ET. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs The NHL is on something of a roll, seeing record attendance and significant viewership gains in 2023-24. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final drew an average of 7.7 million viewers across ABC, ESPN+ and ESPN Deportes, up 182% from last year’s Game 5 clincher, according to ESPN. With Canada viewing included, the matchup between the Edmonton Oilers and champion Florida Panthers drew a total TV audience of 16.3 million viewers in North America, according to the NHL. Attendance reached 22.56 million this season, and league revenue was a record $6.2 billion, Front Office Sports reported. And league sponsorship revenue climbed to $1.4 billion, from $1.28 billion in 2023, according to SponsorUnited. The opportunity to highlight the excitement on the ice is one of the reasons the NHL pursued the Sphere as a venue, said Steve Mayer, chief content officer of the NHL. The event will also call more attention to sponsors such as title sponsor Upper Deck, the trading card company for whom the Draft mints sought-after collectibles. “Sphere right now is the venue that everybody’s talking about. It’s incredibly innovative and state of the art,” Mayer said in an interview. “And we want to make a splash—for us, the bigger the better.” Sphere’s content studio developed the effects that will be used during the draft, said Joel Fisher, executive VP for marquee events and operations for Sphere parent MSG Entertainment. These include a video effect in which hockey teams will appear to rain down on attendees, and highlights of players greeting their teams on stage that will be broadcast in high-definition on the exosphere, which refers to the massive screen covering the globe-shaped venue Upper Deck has been the title sponsor of the NHL Draft for three years, but expects to get an extra kick from this year’s event, said McKenzie Young, marketing consultant for Upper Deck. In past NHL Draft events, “branding and sponsorship have generally been limited to the interior of those sporting venues because that’s what those venues were built to support—branding and marketing toward the patrons,” she said. “The difference with the Sphere is that it was built, interior and exterior, to be a vehicle to promote your brand. So not only will it be a spectacle for people inside the venue but it’s a spectacle for people in Las Vegas,” Young added. “And the content is magnificent. It can be seen in great quality from the streets, and it's easily sharable on social media as well.” Viral moments For business that could conceivably be completed in a Zoom meeting before lunch, sports leagues have turned their draft events into glitzy, multi-day tentpoles. The NHL is no different. Its draft plays on wholesome moments of young athletes realizing their dreams; an underlying unpredictability as teams deal and deke their way to strategic picks. The event offers hope to fans, who can dream about better futures for their favorite teams. “I think a fan really buys into it and loves what the draft represents—it’s that that one moment in somebody’s life, where their life in a heartbeat changes,” Mayer said. “Every kid has a story, every kid comes from somewhere. And every kid’s life changes in that moment that they hear their name. And I think people love that. There’s hope for everybody out there, there’s hope for their sons and daughters. I just think there’s something that's very magical about a draft, and we have grown it, rightly so.” This year in the NHL Draft, all that’s guaranteed is that the San Jose Sharks will select Boston University center Macklin Celebrini with the first-overall pick. Mayer is also predicting some viral moments that will live well beyond the show, comparing them to a sports-focused version of what the Sphere has done for music fans. “Based on what we’re working on, we believe we’ll have a couple of those moments that are sure to be talked about,” Mayer said. “And this is a whole new audience. I’ve seen Dead & Company videos that have gone viral. We all have. But this is the first time where we're really talking directly to sports fans. And I think this audience is going to eat this up, this is going to be so different.” The NHL Draft is “one of the most critical events in the season for us,” Young said. “Rookie cards are such a huge part of collecting, and fans are excited to have new talent infused into their collections,” she said. The card featuring last year's top draft pick, Connor Bedard, was among the most “highly chased,” or sought-after cards in the Upper Deck collection. The draft will also be a showcase for Fanatics, which has taken over the design and manufacturing of NHL jerseys for the first time. Its sweaters will be the ones drafted players try on once selected. Two clubs, the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings, will show off their new branding. The NHL and the Sphere have a connection through James Dolan, who owns the Sphere as well as the New York Rangers (and Knicks). The event gives the arena the chance to demonstrate it can host events other than concerts and screenings. “We as a company have a great relationship with the NHL, and the NHL called us and were interested in doing something big and visionary and different so they asked if they could do the draft at the Sphere,” Fisher related. “We look at it as a great opportrunity for another type of event. It’s what we’ve always planned to do when we first developed the Sphere so we saw this as a great opportunity on both sides.”

NHL Draft at the Las Vegas Sphere—what marketers should know about venue’s first sporting event

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