Air Canada is a rare sponsor indeed: It's not just content with goodwill--it wants to improve the game.

Is it really that simple?

What we're seeing in the news today is a pretty rare event taking place:  Air Canada, the major sponsor of the National Hockey League [NHL] is threatening to withdraw from it's support and identification with the NHL unless the league solves the problem of reckless, intentional "head shots"--which, in turn, pose serious permanent injury to players.  

[As coincidence would have it, the National Football League's just come through a similar set of circumstances with league officials, by contrast, taking decisive, commanding charge by implementing warnings and stipulating serious penalties insofar as future infractions that violate reasonable game conduct are concerned.  But this does not seem to be true for NHL overseers.]

Do you even know about the problem?

If you don't follow the sport, it's a hotly debated issue right now, for there appears to be a marked increase in offensive playing attempts to side-line opposing players on the ice by, in effect, taking them out with body-blows to the head.  If it sounds barbaric, well, it's because it actually is.  

If you're new to the topic, here's a video clip about what we're talking about...

What do most sponsors do when the public persona of an individual or group of people they identify with becomes corrupted? Well, one doesn't need to go back very far; just look at the case of Tiger Woods, Glenn Beck, Michael Phelps, or Mel Gibson.  What most advertisers do is simply walk-away and find another positive entity to identify with!  After all, the task of a sponsor is to find attractive markets, pay money to stand next to them--metaphorically speaking--until such a time as it's not in its self-interest to do so.  Fundamentally, it's not a lot more complicated than that.  

Why go to all of this trouble?

Apparently, for Air Canada it's different in the case of the NHL.  It appears that Air Canada is protecting its league franchise and in so doing making the game of professional hockey better.  So, the question becomes this:  Are they necessarily good guys for taking this approach?  After all, the easiest thing for Air Canada to do would be to simply walk away, spend their money somewhere else, and find another organization to sponsor and be identified with, right?

Actually there are two [not unrelated] ways to think about this.  First, the NHL is--certainly from the average Canadian's perspective--the national sport, just like baseball's [or, more and more so, football's] the sport here in the U.S.; for Air Canada to be identified with something so powerfully charged as that, well, that's hard to leave casually!

Good guys or smart guys?

In another sense, Air Canada's attempts to build the sport is exactly what they should do if they are smart.  This is true for the simple reason that in the process of improving the game--and preserving its fan-base and seeing that undue negative publicity is avoided--it wins the hearts and minds of good people everywhere.  As they move in this direction they build, in a very real sense, their franchise into something bigger.  Better.  And more profitable.

So, it would seem that Air Canada is simply being smart, even while being self-serving.  However, the point is, that not very many advertisers these days would be so patient, thoughtful, or long-suffering.  Or should I say smart and shrewd?  In either case, they have my attention.  And maybe my business down the road!
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