Even before the NHL's top draft pick skates in his first regular-season game on Tuesday, Bedard has driven up key off-ice stats for Chicago according to Jaime Faulkner, the Blackhawks business ops boss.
Even before the NHL's top draft pick skates in his first regular-season game on Tuesday, Bedard has driven up key off-ice stats for Chicago according to Jaime Faulkner, the Blackhawks business ops boss.
Hockey-wise, the stats on Connor Bedard won't count until he plays in his first regular-season game, this Tuesday, Oct. 10 at Pittsburgh against Sidney Crosby and the Penguins.
But anticipation surrounding Bedard, "hockey's next generational talent" has been driving up numbers for the Chicago Blackhawks since they won the NHL's draft lottery on May 8, then selected him first overall on June 28.
According to Jaime Faulkner, the Blackhawks president of business operations, Bedard had impacted both ticket and merchandise sales. NOTE: I first reported the sales gains in an Associated Press story on Sept. 28 when Bedard played his first preseason game. https://apnews.com/article/bedard-blackhawks-nhl-4e5ffbfb6a1f5be041ce5db0995b486c
"Our fans are loyal and passionate," Faulkner said in an email. "Getting the first overall pick brought the excitement to a whole new level. It’s fun – if you aren’t a hockey fan, you do know who Connor Bedard is – so we are seeing new fans pop up."
A quick snapshot here: During three preseason games at the United Center, hundreds of fans of all ages, shapes and sizes were wearing No. 98 Bedard jerseys. As it turns out, most were the $250 Adidas authentic versions, according to Faulkner.
She says overall ticket sales are up 10 percent over last season. Merchandise sales have doubled for the first three months of the Blackhawks' 2023-24 fiscal year compared to the same period in 2022-23.
Faulkner is one of the highest-ranking female executives in the the NHL. She reports directly to team chairman Danny Wirtz and is an alternate on the NHL's Board of Governors. Following are her responses to my questions:
Ticket Sales
Q. How much of a boost have the Blackhawks seen in ticket sales since they got the No. 1 pick, then actually drafted Connor Bedard?
A. At this time, we are projecting an increase of over 17% more tickets sold and an overall 26% higher revenue growth than our initial 2023-24 season projections.
Q. I know the team did well with adaptive marketing last year to boost average attendance to over 17,000 for the season. But is there a way to say: It looks like the United Center will be XX % to XX % many more people full this season?
A.We are currently projecting up to 10% more tickets sold than this past 2022-2023 season.
Q. How many full-season ticket packages have been sold compared to 2022-23?
A. We have nearly doubled our full season ticket packages thus far for the 2023-24 season.
Q. How many more partial season-ticket packages?
A. We have also nearly doubled our partial season-ticket packages thus far for the 2023-24 season as well.
Q.Are any games already sold out?
A. At this time, we currently anticipate at least five sellouts this season.
Merchandise Sale
Q. How are merchandise sales going compared to last season?
A. With three months into the fiscal year for the 2023-2024 season, we’ve already nearly doubled our total merchandise sales when compared to the same timeframe for this time last year (first three months into the 2022-2023 season).
Q. How many Bedard jerseys have been sold since sales officially started on June 28? This could be overall jersey sales, or broken down by levels starting with the Adidas authentic, followed by replica price points.
A. We’ve sold thousands of Connor Bedard jerseys since he was announced as the first overall draft pick on June 28. Of those sales, approximately 85% are authentic jerseys and 15% are replica jerseys.
Q. Which sales channels/platforms are busiest for team merchandise sales? That could include the team store(s), team online and NHL/third-party channels.
A. Our Michigan Avenue store provides for a high volume of growth in terms of overall merchandise revenue, as well as our Madhouse team store at the United Center.
Various locations around the United Center concourse also see upticks in traffic/revenue depending on the season, theme night/brand campaign and special offering.
Social, Owned Media Platforms Picking Up
Faulkner added the Blackhawks social and owned media platforms have seen more traffic since the team won the NHL Draft Lottery on May 8 and then drafted Bedard on June 28.
"We’ve seen a lot of engagement on growth across our owned channels since we won the Draft Lottery and ultimately announced Connor as our first overall pick," she wrote. "We also experience higher engagement on social content that features Connor Bedard."
Some breakdown stats include:
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