LOS ANGELES — The change in the Islanders’ approach off the ice this season might be more dramatic than their shift on it.
Not only has Matthew Schaefer, who was named the NHL’s first star of the week Monday after a two-goal performance to help the Islanders come back to beat the Panthers on Sunday night, helped turbocharge business, but the Isles have also taken a more proactive approach to their marketing, throwing out Lou Lamoriello’s rulebook that put tight strictures on social media content and prohibited promoting individual players over the team.
In short, they’re approaching things like it’s 2026.
Schaefer, specifically, has been heavily promoted all year.
The Isles have been much more creative, and have included players much more often, in their social media content.
And they’ve launched an in-house docuseries.
Exactly how much responsibility all that has on ticket sales versus the simple fact that the team is much better is impossible to say.
But the Islanders are more than happy with where things are.
Sunday was their 12th straight sellout, and the energy in the fan base couldn’t be more different than it was a year ago.
“We’re a challenger brand, right?” president of business operations Kelly Cheeseman told reporters Sunday. “We’re maybe the sixth, seventh brand in the market, in some people’s eyes. We don’t want to be that. We want to punch the big guys in the mouth a little bit here and there by doing things they’re not willing to do and make our brand a little more interesting.”
That is, clearly, the open space for the Islanders to walk into.
They’ll never have the innate gravitas of the Yankees, Knicks or Rangers, but those teams take a much more buttoned-up approach to their brands.
Mathieu Darche has allowed the Islanders to embrace modernity with open arms.
Cheeseman, who was previously COO for both the Kings and AEG Sports, was hired with those changes in mind at the start of the year.
“It kind of allows fans, young kids who maybe their grandfathers and grandmothers were Rangers fans — they want to walk in the door with their Islanders shirts. We love that,” Cheeseman said. “They’re younger, cooler, more diverse and a little bit more interesting and intriguing than some of the older brands in the market. Maybe that pushes it our way.”
Schaefer’s presence has made life immeasurably easier for the Islanders’ marketing department.
Cheeseman said the club started to see a turn in attendance around Thanksgiving, which has stuck.
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“We’re leading the league in social media content and engagement, and a lot of it is because of what [Schaefer’s] doing,” Cheeseman said. “Then you look at something like this week. He breaks Phil Housley’s [rookie scoring for a defenseman] record, he’s the story across the National Hockey League and our sport. [PR chief] Kimber [Auerbach] and our media team have done a really good job of getting him out and he’s had a really good willingness to get out there.”
Cheeseman also said there is a focus on “relaunching” UBS Arena next year, when construction will finish on the Belmont Park racetrack next door and when the Islanders will host the All-Star Game.
“The campus is finally ready,” Cheeseman said. “We got the retail village coming online, we got the racetrack, we got the arena coming into the maturity level. We want to think of it as, we haven’t really had a grand opening. We want to take the moment and really build on it.
On the ice from Long Island
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“The train station wasn’t quite ready [in 2021]. The parking wasn’t quite ready or really open.”
Another key factor, left unsaid: The team was nowhere near as good as expected, and attendance dropped off as a result.
That’s not a problem anymore.
And the Islanders are trying to take as much advantage as possible.
