The Broad Street Bullies

     The Philadelphia Flyers have a very notorious mantra. They are known as the "bad boys" of the NHL, as noted goons. The Flyers entered the NHL in 1967 along with 5 other teams as part of the NHL's first expansion period. The man who brought the team to fruition was a Philadelphia businessman named Ed Snider. Snider was the driving force behind the construction of their first arena also, The Spectrum, located on South Broad Street. Snider's first job was simple; market the team enough for Philadelphia fans would attend games. There had been hockey in Philadelphia prior to the Flyers, the Philadelphia Quakers, and they failed miserably. He chose to market his team in an extremely eccentric way. The first year of their existence, the team was beaten up physically and knocked out of the playoffs by the also new expansion franchise the St. Louis Blues. Snider vowed to the small fan group that the Flyers will never be "bullied" on the ice ever again.

      He created the company "Spectacor" to run the team itself and the spectrum. The Flyers first marketing scheme was built on toughness, and they have never looked back since. The Flyers bullied their way to back-to-back Stanley Cups in 1975-76 by outplaying the other team by not only scoring goals, but by actually beating them up and constant line brawls. The team was known as the "animals" of the NHL and the league has never really forgotten the name. Aside from the obvious winning of back to back championships, the Flyers great fan base as we know it today was built by these marketing schemes. Philadelphia is known as a blue collar city, and they expect their teams to play that way. The Flyers were marketed and accepted by the Philadelphia faithful because of their toughness and on ice antics of pure savagery. The marketing scheme hasn't changed much since due to a few reasons. The Flyers are one of the most successful NHL franchises since their inception (2nd highest winning percentage, though only two cups to show for that), and people love hockey because of it's physicality and fighting, two things the Flyers embraced. They used these as actually tactics to win games, and as a marketing scheme it was genius. Marketing for this team was extremely important because they had virtually no fans show up to games until they started playing as "bullies" and Philadelphia was an already failed hockey town. The NHL was against putting a team there in the first place. The team had to find a way to put fans in the seats right away, and they did that with their marketing strategies (actually naming themselves the "Broad Street Bullies").

     The most crucial part of the Flyers marketing strategy came in 1976, at the height of the Cold War. The Soviets, as we all know, had the greatest hockey team on earth at the time and were unbeatable. The Soviet Union had a special tour with the NHL and the national team took on multiple NHL teams that year and dismantled all of them, they even destroyed the NHL All Star team. The last game of their 1976 tour was at the Spectrum vs. the Flyers, the only time in history the rest of America has rooted for the Flyers. This game put the franchise on the map and is a gigantic turning point of USA hockey. The Flyers beat the Soviets so bad that mid game they stood up and left the ice because the Flyers were playing "too aggressive". This was the first time the Soviets lost a national game in 13 seasons, and to a team that wasn't even around a decade earlier. The Flyers are synonymous around the hockey world for this game. You can bet that this drew them a large demographic of fans and was crucial to their marketing plan and finding a franchise identity.

    Of course now things have changed, the Flyers have taken on a different marketing strategy. They are very business oriented now. In 1996, Ed Snider joined forces with Comcast and created the huge conglomerate Comcast Spectacor. Ever since the joint, all Flyers games are shown on Comcast Sports Net Philadelphia. Snider today holds the position of the chairman of Comcast Spectacor, the regional network Comcast Sportsnet and Global Spectrum. It becomes much easier to market your team when you own an entire sports network. The Flyers have also implemented an industry changing program titled "How you Doin'"? Whenever you walk into the Wells Fargo Center, a Comcast Spectacor associate will ask you this question. It's the companies policy of interacting with the fans and engaging in conversation and making their experience at the arena enjoyable. The company makes sure to receive feedback from fans on this and reward the employees who participate greatly.

     The Flyers marketing strategy has not changed much since their inception, as the old adage says, "if it ain't broke don't fix it". The Flyers have never had a problem filling their arena to capacity year in and out. They have hosted events that contained special marketing at the same time though, like the 2012 Winter Classic. The game was played at Citizen's Bank Park, the Phillies' stadium, across the parking lot, and they incorporated a lot of Philadelphia's history with that game. The emblem for the game was non other than a rendition of the Liberty Bell in nearby Old City, Philadelphia, while also introducing a new jersey for the game.