Sportsnet is trying to get the next generation of hockey fans interested in its NHL broadcasts with the launch of an immersive, hockey-themed Minecraft adventure map, Hockeyland.
Coinciding with the launch of the NHL season, the broadcaster built a fantastical hockey world in the video game, where players must hunt for custom-made items and test their skills in mini-games before reaching the summit of Hockeyland’s peak.
“We are not just assuming that every Canadian is going to grow up being a hockey fan as some kind of birthright,” says Hilding Gnanapragasam, director of sports creative at Rogers Sports & Media, Sportsnet’s parent company. He says that, in the past, the network has tried to “seed fandom” among those that are just starting to get interested in hockey, but this time the broadcaster is introducing hockey to people who potentially have zero interest in the sport. “And rather than bringing kids to hockey, why not bring hockey to where they already are?”
Sportsnet says at that it initially wanted to do an AR activation, and saw executions that agency partner Media.Monks had done in that space. The agency responded with potential activations, but asked if it was willing to step outside of the box and engage the next generation of hockey fans in a new and unique way.
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According to Media.Monks CD Jon Webber, it looked at several games, from Roblox to EA Sports’ NHL franchise. Minecraft stuck out, Webber says, because it has the most eyeballs and it was somewhere it could gain the most traction.
“There’s a huge misconception about the demographic makeup of gamers,” Webber says. While it’s true that some genres are more skewed to men, Minecraft is a casual, creative, sandbox game will appeal that stretches across different groups. Minecraft has so many eyeballs and so much engagement, it could be utilized to its best potential. Gnanapragasam adds that his team was pleasantly surprised to find how much of the Minecraft was in the Gen Z female space, to potentially drive interest in that segment too.
Sportsnet says being the first Canadian broadcaster to do something like this in Minecraft is part of ongoing efforts to resonate with younger viewers. Gnanapragasam points to things like the Next Gen Games, which are events and broadcasts specifically tailored to a younger audience.
With Minecraft, however, he admits it’s taking it out of the Sportsnet sphere, getting people to sample the game and hoping, from there, it will spur interest and generate future viewership.
Every season, Sportsnet does outreach to younger constituents. “This is definitely our biggest swing in that direction,” he says.
Gnanapragasam says it is hoping that down the road, kids have a more inherent interest in hockey, but in the short term, it is looking at the game ratings and downloads, but also what kind of uptake there is on social platforms and USG. “It’s very much a test-and-learn type project,” he says. The effort is being supported with a paid buy and influencer activities on Twitch.
