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More promising 2011 NHL All-Star Game numbers: event a big hit with sponsors, retailers

Image (1) allstargamelogo-thumb-350x191-16697-thumb-250x136-16698.jpg for post 15105

James O’Brien

As we mentioned yesterday, the 2011 NHL All-Star Game was a big ratings success in both Canada and the United States.

It wasn’t just a success from a ratings standpoint, though. The NHL announced that it drew nice improvements in various other financial categories as well.

For one thing, the league reports that corporate sponsor support went up 42 percent compared to the last event that took place in the United States (the 2008 edition in Atlanta). It was also up 12 percent compared to the 2009 event in Montreal. You could see the power of the league’s sponsors in the well-played move to give Phil Kessel a Honda to soothe the pain that came from being “Mr. Irrelevant” in the Fantasy Draft.

Retailers were pleased to boot, as the league announced that it saw an increase in sales for U.S.-based games, with a 20 percent jump from Atlanta’s event.

The game was also popular online. NHL.com saw a record in videos played among other marks:

This year’s NHL All-Star Game showed double- and triple-digit percentage increases in key NHL.com metrics over the 2009 event and set an all-time record for video starts on Sunday, the day of the NHL All-Star Game.

Sunday video starts shattered the month-old record by 26 percent and was 192 percent higher than the season average. Sunday’s video starts represented a 302-percent increase over the 2009 NHL All-Star Game.

Unique visitors for NHL All-Star Weekend were up 67 percent over 2009 and unique visitors for Sunday’s NHL All-Star Game presented by Discover were up 61 percent over 2009.

So, again, by just about any measure the 2011 all-star contest was a huge success. Let’s see if they can top it next year.