Yesterday, on December 3rd, the Riveters had a home game at the RWJBarnabas Health Hockey House. If you follow the New Jersey Devils on social media, you’d be forgiven for missing it – because the Devils had nothing to say about it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or their own webpage.
The New Jersey Devils made many promises when they teamed up with the Metropolitan Riveters, from supporting women’s hockey on a grassroots level to marketing and cross promoting the team. I can’t speak to the former, but the Devils have been an utter failure at the latter.
The Riveters are having a fantastic season. They have the best record in the league by nature of being undefeated. The top five scorers in the league play for the team.
The Devils Promised Marketing
On October 5th, the Devils put out a press release outlining their goals for the Riveters partnership.
One of the bullet points:
"The partnership includes marketing and cross-promotion on digital and social media channels and on game broadcasts – bringing added visibility to the Riveters, NWHL and women’s hockey."
This pairs up with what NWHL Commissioner Dani Rylan told the AP in late October:
"They are marketing us like a real sister team—everything from the website, social media, to the broadcast and in arena… You name it, they’re going to be helping us market the Riveters."
The Devils did a respectable job promoting the first Riveters game. The build up to the game
HB Sports & Entertainment President Hugh Weber told Forbes before the double header that he expected “more cross-promotion on games days and the fan experience even more rich between the two teams.”
The buildup to the season opener started slow, but eventually was as good as promised. A highlight was having Cory Schneider promote the Rivs-Devils doubleheader. The Devils having arguably their team’s biggest star tell people to check out the Riveters carried a lot of weight.
https://twitter.com/NJDevils/status/923260026508267524
The season opener was fantastic, and the Devils deserve a lot of credit for that. I was in attendance that day, and other than some confusion as to where they were selling tickets on game day, it was a fantastic experience. The Devils mascot was even wearing a Riveters shirsey. It felt like they leaned in fully. Later that night, the Riveters got a shout out at the Devils-Coyotes Game. It was hard to walk away from that day cynical about the partnership – the Devils cared. They even sent congratulatory tweets later in the day.
…But The Marketing Has Vanished
After that game was in the record books, the New Jersey Devils social media team seems to have forgotten entirely about the Metropolitan Riveters.
The Devils social media team has only referenced the Riveters once since the season opener, and it was a retweet of a Cyber Monday sale.
For those of you following along at home, every tweet/retweet from the Devils about the Riveters since the partnership was announced on October 4th. pic.twitter.com/6JBY8omiDU
— Aneelin (@Aneelinhere) November 29, 2017
The Devils Twitter account has occasionally liked tweets by the Riveters – either the team or the players – but liking tweets isn’t even in the same zipcode as retweeting them or composing new tweets.
It was possible the Devils didn’t want to tweet about road games, seeing as they didn’t profit from attendance. (Granted, not promoting them goes against their claim of partnering up to grow the game, but we’re talking bare minimum at this point.) When the Riveters returned home this weekend, there was nothing. No tweets, no Facebook posts, no mentions on the Devils website.
The Riveters don’t even make an appearance as a property on the HB Sports & Entertainment website. The Sixers Innovation Lab, something that only opened this July and is decidedly not a sports team, has a mention, but the Riveters do not.
The Devils are not promoting an asset in which they have an ownership stake. They are not helping grow the game. If they care about the Riveters, they’re not showing it in a way that matters.
One of the most famous moments in Devils history involves a man screaming “HAVE ANOTHER DONUT…”
…but they can’t find a way to tie that in with a league sponsored by Dunkin Donuts?
Malfeasance Unlikely, But Results Matter
Despite all this, I believe that the Devils organization cares about the Riveters. Enough Rivs players have gone on record talking about support they’ve received for me to believe it. Hugh Weber is, by all accounts, a genuine human who deeply cares about the fan experience, and I’m sure he was telling the truth when he said he was excited. Even from a purely economic standpoint, they wouldn’t have invested in the Riveters if they didn’t expect to see a return on it somewhere down the line. The NWHL is a for-profit league, and the fact that it pays its players was a selling point from day one.
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The entire league is watching. The Bruins have their eye on the Boston Pride, and the Sabres are weighing their options for the Beauts. The Olympics are right around the corner, and the women’s hockey is likely going to get more attention than the men’s for the first time ever. Women’s hockey is more marketable right now than it has been at any point in history. But the Devils, for reasons unknown, have stopped marketing the Riveters at the worst time for all parties involved. The optics are terrible, and they’re blowing a major opportunity.
I can’t speak to the rest of the partnership, but as of press time, the New Jersey Devils have utterly failed at marketing and promoting the Riveters. Fans are watching. It doesn’t hurt to compose a tweet once a week. If that’s too hard, retweeting is free. The way to grow the game is to let a new audience know about the game in the first place.