We don’t know which 16 teams will be participating in the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs — or even when the games will begin. But despite the logistical complications, the NHL is opening early registration on Monday evening for its annual Bracket Challenge.
Now in its eighth year, the contest is intended to be an easy point of entry to the postseason, for both casual and die-hard fans.
“We look at the NCAA March Madness tournament with a lot of admiration for what they’re able to do through their bracket program,” said Casey Hall, the NHL’s senior vice president of marketing and consumer insights. “Seeing what they have done to create kind of the excitement and interest level, not just around your favorite team’s games but around all the other games happening — that was something that we wanted to try.”
In the 2013-14 season, the NHL realigned its clubs from six divisions down to four. A new conference-based playoff format was also introduced, with no re-seeding between rounds. That was perfect groundwork to introduce the Bracket Challenge during the 2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
“I wish I could say marketing is the one who makes the decisions on playoff format, but that’s not the case,” Hall chuckled. “Hockey operations is always going to make the decision on how best to structure the playoffs, based on the competitive balance and the needs of the game. We draft in that wake.”
Commissioner Gary Bettman often opines that the parity in the NHL is the best in pro sports. Playoff upsets are a regular occurrence, which is why building a winning bracket is so demanding. With contestants also required to correctly predict the number of games for each first-round series, the league is still waiting to see its first perfect entry.
For 2021, the fan that finishes at the top of the leaderboard will win the chance to attend a 2022 NHL event. Prizes have varied over the years — from 2015 to 2018, winners were invited to attend the NHL Awards in Las Vegas.
Registration for this year’s contest opens at 7 p.m. ET on Monday at NHL.com/bracket. With the possibility that the playoffs for the 12 U.S.-based qualifiers could begin before seeding is finalized in Canada’s North Division, participants will be invited to enter their picks as soon as the order of the top four finishers in each of the East, Central and West Divisions is set.
Brackets will be locked immediately before the first game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs begins.
Another wrinkle in this year’s bracket will come in the third round. The unique divisional alignment for the 2020-21 season saw the Eastern and Western Conferences put on ice, so to speak. This year, once the four division winners are crowned at the end of Round 2, they’ll be re-seeded based on regular-season points, then No. 1 will play No. 4 and No. 2 plays No. 3.
The Bracket Challenge game will automatically set participants’ matchups for the Round 3 Stanley Cup Semifinals, based on the teams they select to advance out of each division.
In addition to encouraging fan engagement, the Bracket Challenge is a valuable marketing tool for the NHL and its partners.
Out of an average of 800,000 entrants each year, Hall says about half of the participants come from the U.S., one-third from Canada, and the remainder from the rest of the world.
“Every year, about 30%, on average, of those entries are new to file, which means that they’re new names into our database system,” he continued. “We are getting new fans and engaging new people in this.”
Another unique component of the Bracket Challenge is the opportunity to set up private leagues to establish bragging rights.
“A lot of the clubs draft off this and create their own leagues,” Hall said. “Clubs that are in the playoffs might create a public league for their fans to join. And some of them create private leagues, just for their season-ticket holders or other kinds of membership groups.
“A lot of our other corporate sponsors will create their own leagues,” he added. “Sportsnet is creating a league for all of their employees across their network. We’ve had Geico and Honda and others create leagues, either for their databases — offering their own prizes — or for dealer networks or distributors or other things.
“It’s a pretty cool platform. It really works in a lot of different ways for a lot of different partners.”
Looking ahead, Hall is eager to see how the Bracket Challenge can evolve when new broadcast partners ESPN and Turner Sports come on board, starting in the 2021-22 season.
“Both of them are top-of-class sports broadcasters and media companies,” he said. “Obviously, our conversations have only been going on for a short amount of time. But to date, they’ve been incredible partners, talking about their plans and their ideas and how they want to partner with us on programs exactly like this, to make them bigger and better and help all of us grow the business.”
