from Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe,

Among North America’s four largest sports leagues, the NHL always has had to fight harder and grind a bit extra in the corner for sponsorship dollars. When it first offered its arena sideboards to advertisers in the 1980s, critics complained that is was a desperate sellout, a rinky-dink gambit other leagues wouldn’t in their wildest dreams consider.

But then the money, lots of it, began gushing, and all the other leagues rushed to the revenue geyser. The greenbacks flowed like warm water from the back end of a Zamboni.

Today, 30-plus years later, it would be blank sideboards free of advertising that would scream “bush league!” Could we imagine watching a Red Sox broadcast anymore without the ad for the Ninety Nine, Frank Webb or JetBlue popping up all over the screen, as if painted on Fenway’s walls big and small? The NHL changed the branding game in the United States and Canada.

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