S.O.S. AHL Schedule: Marketing

With cable tv, the internet, social media, you would think it would be easy to boost interest and awareness of a product, but part of me doubts that. I think the AHL has a difficult task ahead of itself. The games aren't nationally televised, there is a lot on the internet about the NHL to sufficiently drown out whatever goes on about the AHL, and the same goes for social media. So, how can the AHL garner more attention, increase revenue to better its product? I have a few theories on that:

• NFL strategy: This is the weakest, and most likely to fail, but the NFLs strategy lately. Generate a scandal to draw attention to the league when you aren't watching. Given the off the ice incidents with Patrick Kane and how the media typically receives hockey anyway, I doubt this will work.
  
  
• Get games on tv: Few ways of doing this. Most involve flexing some games to earlier time spots. They all involve giving viewing time of teams away for free because that is exposure, and that is what the AHL wants.

• 

  Wikimedia Commons

   Local stations, cut a deal, as long as they don't interrupt prime time they would be happy to oblige. Better than the mid-day Saturday reruns they typically have. Plus on local television, it could help amp up interest in the community aspect, which is where love for an AHL team comes from.
  
  
• National TV: Cut a deal with big brother. Broadcast an AHL game of the week on NHL Network, cut it up with the fancy cameras and your prospects get national coverage. It draws attention to the NHL, attention to the prospects and with the big lights and cameras, it helps prospects get used to those big lights.
  
  
• Internet Streaming: I know the AHL does this already with audio and video casts, but you have to pay the premium. I'm saying, don't make it pay per view, but partner with YouTube, Twitch or some other high end streaming service that will do a good job of plugging your games and then you don't ever have to worry about flexing games to earlier times. You get an AHL game of the week that everyone can see, you can hit all 30 teams so everyone can feel that sense of local pride, treat it like an NHL broadcast and give a game or two a week to the people. 
  
  
• Rivalries: Develop them. Hammer home on them. Say how much this team hates that team even if it isn't true and have social media chirping at each other. People buy into dichotomies, Good, bad, winners, losers, heroes, villains.  That is what sells. If you're the Springfield Falcons, I see the fact that the Providence Bruins games are what's selling as a bad sign because it means that they aren't coming to see the Falcons. Build up Hartford with your news paper ads, local station ads, and so forth. Every team, pick two to three and drive up the hate. Social media is perfect for this and its something that occasionally happens, but should happen more often.
  
  

  
• Local Coverage: Work with your local news papers to become a larger part of the news. Develop in the local section, the sports section, opinion and maybe even the front page. Local news websites should be working with you to talk about your brand, secretly promoting it with actual news stories. Be part of the community in highly visible ways and you'll drive interest in hockey. If they present it all in simple ways that make the game easy to understand, you can draw in a more casual audience and convert them along the way as well.
  
  
• Differentiate yourself from the NHL: Sell yourself as a separate product. If NHL is name brand, and you're generic, you can't compete for attention. You have to build yourself as something different, something more relaxed and fun, and take the NHL out of it otherwise the fan bases overlap and local teams in towns under a different the umbrella of an NHL team of a different affiliation will suffer. You're NOT the NHL and that could even be your slogan. You provide hard-hitting, raucous, family friendly, but not too-family-friendly hockey like your grandad always talked about. It's a fan experience unlike what you get in the NHL, its more base, more raw, more intense for less money. The NHL is still the elite experience, but the AHL can be the every day working man experience communities should love.