[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by TheoFleury

No they haven't. Not to extent I was saying anyway.

If they did all the things I suggested, the league would make millions more than they do right now. If success=money, why haven't my ideas been permanently implemented years ago? Seems like a no-brainer if you're just trying to make money.

You should read Bettman's comments about ads on jerseys. Makes me think nothing is imminent there unless companies are willing to pay very uncomfortable amounts of money. You'd think if success=money, they would accept even $1m per team, per year to do it. Right there, that's $30m per year out of thin air!

Bro, there are ads on the world cup jerseys.

A benefit of hosting a half-gimmick, half-serious event such as the World Cup is that new revenue-generating initiatives can be rolled out without protest.

For this tournament, the NHL/NHLPA has embarked upon jersey advertisements (small patches rented out by SAP software company) and digitally enhanced dasher boards (aesthetically pleasing ads).

Both money makers have been billed as experiments that may or may not transition into regular NHL territory (i.e. non-World Cup games). Time to test the waters, indeed.

“So far there hasn’t been any negative reaction to (the ads). It wouldn’t surprise me if some people had some reactions to it, because it’s fundamentally non-traditional,” Fehr said. "That being said, the players, and everybody else, are in the modern world and none of the sports look the way they did 25 (or) 50 years ago. You have to adapt on an ongoing basis.”

Fehr is spot-on in his outlook. The NHLPA’s membership is hundreds deep, so the presumed baby step toward commercializing NHL sweaters — although Bettman on Friday insisted it “isn’t the first step” — obviously won’t be praised universally.

Team USA forward Blake Wheeler, an initial critic of the ads, may have softened his view.

“I think there’s ways to do it without tarnishing kind of the look of the jerseys,” Wheeler said Friday after practice. “Hopefully there can be a good balance.”