Detroit Red Wings: Jersey ads coming in 2022-23 is criminal
By Tyler Kotila
The Detroit Red Wings, like all 32 teams in the National Hockey League, have officially fallen off the slippery slope that is advertisements on jerseys. The league’s board of governors has made a revolutionary announcement in regards to advertisements on jerseys, and it’s not a good one.
The league announced that starting in the 2022-23 season, teams will be allowed to place smaller advertisements on their jerseys. In 2020-21, the Detroit Red Wings featured advertisements on their helmets like all other NHL teams.
Those have been announced as something that is here to stay in an announcement earlier this summer. That being said, the focus shifted to featuring advertisements on jerseys($), which they will likely not turn back from.
It was announced that teams will be able to feature 3 inches by 3.5 inches logo on the team’s respective jerseys. It’s a criminal idea and seems like one that will continue to develop, and more ads are allowed.
The Detroit Red Wings featuring jersey ads in 2022-23 is awful.
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The business benefit/impact is understandable. Ad revenue generates more money for the organization, and it’s understandable. But the classic hockey fan and traditionalist in most has to be screaming on the inside.
Personally, adding the advertisements to the jerseys sucks, whether it’s going to generate revenue or not. Even a small logo added to a classic jersey like the Red Wings sucks.
With the small logos being the beginning, it’s hard not to see where a league like the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) has ended up.
For those who have not, please take a look at Google Images; you’ll see why it’s a bad idea.
Covering a Red Wings jersey in logos would be blasphemous to the organization. While it’s just one logo now, if more become allowed in the future, it’s going to make things suck for hockey fans.
Maybe it’s the traditionalist in me, but I was disheartened after hearing the announcement about jersey ads being allowed. As mentioned, the business aspect makes sense and is understandable. The look of the jerseys undergoing a change is what I do not like.
Jersey ads coming to the league in 2022-23 is going to keep furthering the NHL off this slippery slope and farther down the rabbit hole of money-grabbing. That’s a discussion for another time, but from a traditionalist Red Wings fan… it sucks.
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The Red Wings jersey adding any sort of advertisement is not a good thing, and who knows where it’ll end if they start with one advertisement and keep going.