The NHL's Chicago Blackhawks represent a remarkable turnaround...both on and off the ice

The on-ice turnaround scored by the National Hockey League's Chicago Blackhawks over the past three years is impressive. A five-season exile from the Stanley Cup playoffs ended last year and the Blackhawks red, black and gold colour palette is likely to be a going concern for much of the new decade.

Adept drafting, smart trades and a couple of prized free agent acquisitions have given Chicago fans a few reasons for both short and long-term optimism. After all, in the business of sport, nothing is more fundamentally important -- in most markets -- than the business of winning.

Yet the on-ice makeover is matched -- if not exceeded -- by the remarkable turnaround the Original Six franchise has achieved off the ice. In Chicago, product and marketing have met to create a one-two punch as balanced and lethal as that of any NHL franchise in the U.S. (See NHL Composite Power Rankings 2009-'10 http://www.facebook.com/thesportmarket?v=photos&ref=ts#!/photo.php?pid=3724749&id=280702824731)

The combination has taken the Blackhawks from second-to-last in NHL attendance in 2006-'07 to first overall the past two years.

The marketing part has been handled brilliantly by Blackhawks' president John McDonough (hired in November of 2007); fully-empowered by second generation owner Rocky Wirtz (who took over from his dad, the late Bill Wirtz the previous month) and complemented over the past two years by business operations senior vice-president Jay Blunk (January of 2008).

The Blackhawks are back and they're back on the strength of comprehensive, brand-based marketing; an integrated strategy in which the NHL's Chicago foothold is firing on all of the most important cylinders in business operations. Blackhawks marketing has at least 10 streams, none more important than the first three (product promotion, broadcast platform and sense of history):

1. Product marketing: Chicago has a good, young team and Blackhawks marketers make sure everyone knows that;

2. Broadcast marketing: McDonough and company understand the best way to expose their new product is through television and radio. WGN-TV, Comcast Sportsnet and WGN Radio are key partners in the off-ice turnaround because they've put the team back on the Chicago sports map. Regular season games draw sellouts of 21,000 plus to the United Center and almost 10 times that on television;

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3. Heritage marketing: The repatriation of Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita and Tony Esposito was not only long overdue, it brought back a generation of 'hawks fans who were as estranged as the former stars were over the span of three decades;

4. Partnership marketing: An NHL team in an American market can only benefit from aligning itself with the other professional franchises in the city. McDonough linked the Blackhawks with the Cubbies (his alma mater), White Sox, Bears and the Bulls, their United Center partners owned by Jerry Reinsdorf. The partnership approach culminated in the 2009 Winter Classic at Wrigley Field and made special event marketing part of the mix for the Blackhawks;

5. Cross marketing: The partnerships also set the stage for creative cross-promotions with the city's top stars in other sports. Even the campaigns that didn't make it to television -- most notably the 2009 series featuring the Blackhawks and da Bears that was banned by the NFL -- caused a stir on the web and in chat rooms, demonstrating the NHL team was prepared to ride the air baloon of their more famous football cousins;

6. Personality marketing: The Blackhawks are ultimately selling a team brand, but they know that team brand is defined in large part by the personal brands of their players. The team's star tandem on the ice, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, are the star tandem in television, radio and print advertising. Phase 2: Making Hollywood celebs such as Vince Vaughn part of the personality of the franchise;

7. Theme marketing: The simple and hockey-themed tagline One Goal, crafted by global ad agency Ogilvy Mather, has served as the Blackhawks' mantra for the past two years;

8. Entertainment marketing: The new Blackhawks have made hockey cool again. From opening anthems to goal celebrations, the United Center is the Madhouse on Madison. Just ask visiting teams stabbed with the Chelsea Dagger after every Chicago goal. Is there a more distinctive goal celebration song in the NHL right now? (See and hear The Fratellis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEXHeTcxQy4)

9.  Social media marketing: In the hometown and state of Barrack Obama, the Blackhawks are all over Facebook, Twitter and YouTube;

10. Cause marketing: The Blackhawks have always made money in Chicago. Now they're sharing the wealth and investing in causes that matter to the community. Just more reasons for Chicago to care about the Blackhawks.

Add it all up and you've got the best marketed franchise in the United States and one of the top three in the NHL. The Blackhawks have already been acknowledged as among the fastest-rising sports properties in the United States (see Champions of The Sport Market 2008 http://www.thesportmarket.biz/pdf/Champions_of_Sport_2008_International.pdf). With a solid on-ice product and dynamic off-ice marketing, don't count on them going away anytime soon.

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Could Michael Jordan become the next Mario Lemieux?

As he embarks on his tenure as a majority owner in the NBA, former basketball superstar Michael Jordan could do worse than to follow the ownership manual written by former NHL superstar Mario Lemieux.

In fact, it appears he may have already read the first few pages.

Lemieux, the only other living former North American superstar to serve as principal owner and governor of a major league franchise with his beloved Pittsburgh Penguins, was one of the people Jordan consulted with before closing his recent $275 million US acquisition of the Charlotte Bobcats.

The deal not only made Jordan the first former player to hold a controlling interest in an NBA franchise, it made him fourth on the all-time list of former athletes to serve as a majority owner in North American sport.  The other two are Papa Bear George Halas, Sr., who played, coached and owned the NFL's Chicago Bears over a period spanning seven decades last century and former Baltimore Colts player Jerry Richardson, who ironically is the founding owner of Charlotte's other big league team, the Carolina Panthers of the NFL.

The Lemieux ownership manual is a must read for Jordan because the former #66 is the only person to win the Stanley Cup as both player and owner. After winning two Cups in the early 1990s, Lemieux became co-majority owner of the Penguins in 1999, buying the franchise out of bankruptcy with Ron Burkle. Jordan would like nothing more than to become basketball's Lemieux and add a title with the Bobcats to the six he won as the most famous Chicago Bull in the 1990s.
 
The Super Mario playbook will show how you go from bankruptcy to supremacy in 10 years...from being precariously close to relocation to drafting next-generation superstars such as Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin to making back-to-back Stanley Cup appearances, culminating in a championship in 2009.

The playbook also outlines the approach behind selling out more than 100 consecutive home games (and counting) and gaining the kind of community and corporate support that allows you to build a new, $321 million US arena, the Consol Energy Center, which opens this fall and will help the Penguins make the most of the Crosby era.

Lemieux used his personna and profile to get that support in Pittsburgh. He used his experience playing under both the late Bob Johnson and Scotty Bowman to understand how important it was for him to surround himself with hockey operations talent, including respected general managers such as Craig Patrick and Dan Shero. He used his credibility as a former player selectively, stepping up on occasion to inspire the Pens' lockerroom with a few choice words of wisdom.

They're wired differently and are different people, but Jordan has many of the same qualities. The same profile. The same championship pedigree. The same credibility as a former MVP and winner.

Even though he has less of a hill to climb than Lemieux did in 1999 and despite already overseeing basketball operations since 2006, that doesn't mean Jordan cannot benefit from using the Lemieux playbook to make the Bobcats successful, both on and off the court.

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