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NHL considering virtual digital signage ads

League is trying out a kind of virtual signage advertising technology that would allow broadcasters to replace advertisements on the boards around the ice known as dasherboards with their own ads.

November 20, 2014

The National Hockey League is trying out a kind of virtual signage advertising technology that would allow broadcasters to replace ads on the boards around the ice known as dasherboards with their own, according to Sports Business Daily.

The "dynamic dasherboards" would allow "away" broadcasters to sell virtual ads for games in an out-of-market arena to advertisers, SBD said:

So, for example, Boston's NESN could sell dasherboard inventory for its coverage of when the Bruins play the Flyers at Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

Supponor, a European company whose history dates to 2000, is testing its DBR (digital billboard replacement) virtual advertising system with the league — and it did so as recently as Oct. 3 at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey. The system also has been tested at the XL Center in Hartford, Connecticut, home of the AHL Hartford Wolfpack.

"In hockey, the things that pass in front of the boards are fast-moving and unpredictable," Supponor CEO Roger Hall told SBD. "That makes our job difficult, but we've done enough work on hockey in a testing mode that we feel the technology is more than robust enough."