NHL Schedule Release: The Numbers Are In

👋 Welcome back to Sponcon Sports, a weekly newsletter dedicated to sponsored content strategy in the sports industry! 

A major player acquisition can generate more attention than months of scheduled content.

But it isn't just blockbuster trades.

A free-agent signing. A top draft pick. A highly anticipated prospect call-up.

The right transaction can instantly give fans more excitement for the current season or new hope about the future.

That's why I've always been bullish on transaction sponsorships.

The Philadelphia 76ers just showed why.

At the start of the 2025-26 season, the Sixers announced a new partnership with Bank of America.

Part of the deal included sponsorship of the team's transaction content, appropriately named Transaction Wire presented by Bank of America (click here and toggle to “latest” for a closer look).

It's a simple name, but a smart one.

The connection between the content and the brand is immediately clear.

Now, transaction sponsorships aren't perfect.

Unlike a gameday series, there's no consistent flow of content throughout the season. Performance comes in waves.

Some months are quiet.

Others can completely change the value of the package.

The Sixers got exactly that.

Leading up to the trade deadline, Philadelphia welcomed six new players. Those announcement posts generated more than 700K impressions on X.

Then came the offseason.

The Sixers made one of the league's biggest moves, acquiring Jaylen Brown from the Boston Celtics.

Combined with five additional player acquisitions, the team's transaction content generated 1.63M impressions on X.

One million of those impressions (61%) came from the Jaylen Brown announcement alone.

Across all 12 player additions, the platform generated 88.8K engagements and delivered a 5.4% engagement rate.

Strong reach.
Strong engagement.
Exactly what brands are looking for.

What I like most, though, is that the Sixers didn't treat this as a social-only sponsorship.

A Transaction Wire presented by Bank of America banner appears at the top of transaction-related emails and website stories.

Every player acquisition becomes a multi-platform sponsorship moment.

That's an important lesson because too often, teams sell transaction content as a handful of social posts.

The best programs turn player movement into a platform that stretches across social, web, email, and any other channel fans use to follow the team.

So, when evaluating sponsorship opportunities, don't focus solely on content volume. Focus on the moments.

A single player acquisition can outperform weeks—or even months—of regularly scheduled content. The teams that package those moments across channels are the ones that create the most value for partners.

And while transaction content naturally comes in waves, there are ways to build a more consistent sponsorship platform around it.

By combining transactions with complementary assets, teams can create a steadier drumbeat of content throughout the year while giving partners more predictable exposure and greater overall value.

I broke down exactly how I approach packaging, pricing, and selling transaction sponsorships in this guide.

• Schedule Release Scouting Report 📋️

• Reveal Blocked By Design 🦊

• Sound Of Speed 🐝

🏊️ DEEP DIVE
2026 NHL Schedule Release: The Sponsorship Numbers You Missed

Hot off the presses: a special Friday edition of Sponcon Sports.

Less than 18 hours after the 2026 NHL Schedule Release, the numbers are in.

Last year, I broke down the sponsorship trends, creative approaches, and standout executions from across the league. If you'd like to compare how things evolved year-over-year, you can revisit that edition here.

This year, we're taking things a step further.

In partnership with Gondola, we've compiled every NHL Schedule Release video and graphic in one place. You can filter by analytics such as views, engagement, trending, and Gondola Score.

For those unfamiliar, Gondola Score compares a post's engagement to the median engagement of similar posts from the same account and format over a six-month window. It's one of the best ways to evaluate performance relative to a team's normal baseline rather than raw engagement alone.

Now let's dive into the stats and trends that stood out.

Sponsorship Stats

• 88% of teams (28-of-32) produced a Schedule Release hero video, down from 94% (30-of-32) in 2025. The Carolina Hurricanes, Utah Mammoth, Florida Panthers, and Tampa Bay Lightning were the group who opted out of a hero video. Note: the Panthers and Mammoth had B-side concepts that utilized video.

• 57% of teams that posted videos (16-of-28) had a sponsor attached to the asset, up from 47% (14-of-30) in 2025.

• 13% of teams (4-of-32) attached sponsors to schedule graphics only—the same amount as 2025. That group was the Panthers, Lightning, Mammoth, and Pittsburgh Penguins.

• 25% of teams (5-of-20) with sponsored assets did not tag the brand, down from 41% (7-of-17) in 2025

• 13 different brands appeared across Schedule Release content, down from 16 brands in 2025.

• Ticketmaster sponsored content for 30% of the teams with branded assets (6-of-20)—up from 28% (5-of-18) in 2025—double the next most frequent brand: SeatGeek (3 teams).

• 4 new brands entered the mix in 2026: Polymarket (New York Rangers), Molson (Ottawa Senators), Los Angeles Kings (Vivid Seats), and Toyota (Vegas Golden Knights).

Beyond ticketing, no brand showed up more than once. Here’s a breakdown of the top categories:

Ticketing (10): Ticketmaster (Detroit Red Wings, Buffalo Sabres, Washington Capitals, Philadelphia Flyers, Columbus Blue Jackets, Anaheim Ducks), SeatGeek (Panthers, Mammoth, Minnesota Wild), Vivid Seats (Kings).

Airline (2): Alaska Airlines (Seattle Kraken), JetBlue (New York Islanders)

Medical (2): Advent Health (Lightning), UPMC (Penguins)

Gambling (2): Polymarket (New York Rangers), Circa Sports (Chicago Blackhawks)

The Banking category saw the biggest drop, decreasing by 75% (4-to-1).

• New Jersey Devils: Citizens to None

• Rangers: Chase to Polymarket

• Capitals: Capital One to Ticketmaster

Product Integrations: Seen in 13% of Sponsored Videos

Only two teams baked brands directly into content, rather than an overlay. That’s down from 36% in 2025 (5-of-14):

• Kraken: Their Booked and Busy video opened at an Alaska Airlines desk, where the season was announced as ready for takeoff. A departures board appeared shortly after, before the video transitioned through several other travel-inspired scenes.

• Islanders: The JetBlue logo appeared on at least seven different props throughout the latest edition of the Cal Clutterbuck Intern series.

Favorite Moments and Notable Strategies

Rangers: Ahead of Schedule Release, New York fittingly ran a "Predict the Home Opener" sweepstakes in partnership with Polymarket. The team also took an unconventional approach to distribution, releasing separate videos for each division (Metro, Atlantic, Central, and Pacific).

Panthers: Florida really made fans work for the schedule, posting 84 tweets—one for every game—in a text-only format. A graphic was posted beforehand, but it wasn't pinned to the top of the page or linked within the lead tweet.

Boston Bruins: Like the Panthers, Boston initially released its schedule through a text-only post. However, it was part of a larger bit in which Nikita Zadorov had taken over for the team's vacationing social admin.

Lightning: Tampa Bay skipped the hero video entirely but may have created the first Schedule Release audiobook. Andrei Vasilevskiy narrated the 1:58-long production.

Capitals: Washington packaged its schedule release inside an Alexander Ovechkin highlight reel framed with broadcast-style, lower-third graphics. The team unveiled matchups through the ticker at the bottom of the screen while keeping Ticketmaster branding visible throughout.

Senators: Bravo to Ottawa for The Real Media Members of the Ottawa Senators. The team released a trailer on social before driving fans to a sponsored landing page and full-length video presented by Molson.

Blue Jackets: Columbus leaned into the timely moment with a Toy Story-inspired concept. My favorite touch came after the credits, when Sid appeared to reveal the Penguins matchup.

Devils: Speaking of 2026 movie tie-ins, I had a lot of fun with New Jersey's The Devils Wear Prada concept.

Vancouver Canucks: Vancouver partnered with hockey creators Pavel Barber and Zach Bell for a trick-shot Schedule Release.

Ducks: Check out the 1:42 mark of Anaheim's Pokémon card concept. For a fully animated video, it's impressive how quickly the team incorporated the Leo Carlsson offer-sheet storyline.

Flyers: Philadelphia ran back a concept that generated the most earned media value across the league this year (according to Socialpruf) for a B-side version of their Schedule Release.

Next Steps

One stat jumped out more than any other:

38% of NHL teams (12-of-32) still did not have a sponsored Schedule Release asset.

The challenge is rarely the content itself.

The challenge is timing.

Too often, teams try to sell Schedule Release as a standalone activation late in the sales cycle when partner budgets are already committed elsewhere. By that point, the asset is competing against dozens of other sponsorship opportunities for a shrinking pool of dollars.

The teams extracting the most value from Schedule Release aren't selling a single day of content.

They're selling a year-round platform.

Schedule Release becomes the anchor for monthly schedule look-aheads, matchup content, schedule update graphics, sweepstakes, website integrations, email placements, and more. The result is a larger sponsorship story that's easier for brands to justify and easier for sales teams to monetize.

If you'd like my full framework for packaging, pricing, and selling Schedule Release for maximum value, check out my complete playbook here.

🔍️ SPONCONSPIRATION
Steal These Ideas

Wrexham used a clever "blocked" kit reveal to announce Firefox as its new front-of-shirt partner. Leaning into the browser's privacy positioning, the club hid the full jersey design until a later "unblocked" reveal. It reminded me of the WhatsApp "Built Privately" tarp Mercedes has used ahead of its livery reveals.

Speaking of smart partnership announcements, Lotto-Intermarché welcomed Actual as its new employment partner with a first-person POV video that showed what it's like to work with the team during the Tour de France.

You need to check out Belgium's PwC-sponsored Starting XI graphics from this year's World Cup. The Red Devils embraced an American theme and rolled out a different creative concept for each match (Post 1 | Post 2 | Post 3 | Post 4 | Post 5 | Post 6).

Fan-designed apparel was having a moment last week. The New York Islanders are giving fans the chance to design the club's third jersey for the 2027-28 season, right down to the color of the Fanatics logo. Meanwhile, the Portland Trail Blazers launched an Opening Night T-Shirt Design Contest presented by Moda Health. The biggest surprise? Neither activation incorporated AI. Manchester City and Puma's AI-powered kit design program and fan vote from 2024-2025 remains my favorite example of this concept.

Sting Energy teamed up with DJ Alan Walker on "The Sting Within Me," an F1-inspired track built around an engine sound that surprisingly sounds like it's saying "sting."

LEGO put a fun twist on the driver reaction test for its F1 Academy partnership by swapping in balls made entirely of LEGO bricks.

🚨 ICYMI
Sports Industry News & Insights

Channel Surfing: Evan Shapiro dissected how legacy TV has lost the plot, showing that 82% of the world is now under 55 and YouTube already beats the big TV giants with 13–54s, arguing media decision‑makers need to follow those younger audiences to YouTube, TikTok, and phone‑first viewing [via Media War & Peace].

Blueair’s Big Boost: Alyssa Meyers explored how Blueair turned a midseason Knicks partnership and athlete-first strategy into a 1,000%+ increase in Instagram views and broader brand momentum [via Marketing Brew].

Silverstone Standout: Nirupam Singh broke down Aston Martin’s Silverstone experiential strategy and spotlighted why its three-tiered fan and partner activations rose above the usual race-week noise [via The Commercial Table].

World Cup Activation Playbook: Brian Gainor shared a free comprehensive FIFA World Cup 2026 Activation Playbook featuring the tournament's most creative sponsorships, fan experiences, and marketing campaigns.

Portfolio Or Pile: Aref Jdey dug into how the top five airline sponsors in sports use completely different playbooks, and challenged brands to decide whether their own portfolios show a strategy or just a stack of deals.