If arena-board advertising wasn't enough, hockey fans can now get ready for virtual ads.
Really, it was just a matter of time.
If you didn't see this coming, well, you're about to.
Leave it to the Sports Business Journal to break the news to us that the NHL will unveil virtual ads in this spring's playoffs, transforming the glass around the rink into the yellow pages, much like the ads that annoy the heck out of us from behind home plate during the World Series.
The difference, of course, is that people actually pay attention to baseball in the U.S.. In the NHL, virtual ads for an audience that virtually could care less?
To wit, this past weekend, the New York Rangers and Pittsburgh game featuring the NHL's largest market and the golden boy of the league, with obvious playoff implications for both teams, drew a staggering 1.0 rating.
If you must know, no, that is not a very good thing.
Take away the 2.6 rating garnered on New Year's Day for the Winter Classic, and the NHL average on NBC to date is a 0.9.
Now unless you are talking body fat or a breathalyzer reading, any digit less than one in anything is generally not all that positive.
Obviously, fans in the arena will not be able to see the ads superimposed on the glass, but the couple hundred viewers at home now have another reason to hurl their remote across the room.
But these new virtual ads make sense, I guess. For the NHL, it's a chance to increase revenue. For advertisers, an opportunity to reach a viewing audience of, say, 70 or 80 people. And for fans, well, uh, let' see...
I'm going to have to get back to you on that one.
After all, if you can't see those ads plastered on the boards around the entire freakin' rink, virtual advertising isn't going to help you. A new glasses prescription, on the other hand, might.
Of course, virtual ads can work. Really, they can.
But it might be a tough sell if virtually no one is paying attention.