{"id":501351,"date":"2026-03-03T14:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501351\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:21:09","slug":"islanders-arent-ok-being-just-a-challenger-brand-anymore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501351\/","title":{"rendered":"Islanders aren’t OK being just a ‘challenger brand’ anymore"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES \u2014 The change in the Islanders\u2019 approach off the ice this season might be more dramatic than their shift on it.<\/p>\n

Not only has Matthew Schaefer, who was named the NHL\u2019s first star of the week Monday after a two-goal performance<\/a> 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\u2019s rulebook that put tight strictures on social media content and prohibited promoting individual players over the team.<\/p>\n

In short, they\u2019re approaching things like it\u2019s 2026. <\/p>\n

Schaefer, specifically, has been heavily promoted all year. <\/p>\n

The Isles have been much more creative, and have included players much more often, in their social media content. <\/p>\n

And they\u2019ve launched an in-house docuseries.<\/p>\n

Exactly how much responsibility all that has on ticket sales versus the simple fact that the team is much better is impossible to say. <\/p>\n

But the Islanders are more than happy with where things are. <\/p>\n

Sunday was their 12th straight sellout, and the energy in the fan base couldn\u2019t be more different than it was a year ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a challenger brand, right?\u201d president of business operations Kelly Cheeseman told reporters Sunday. \u201cWe\u2019re maybe the sixth, seventh brand in the market, in some people\u2019s eyes. We don\u2019t want to be that. We want to punch the big guys in the mouth a little bit here and there by doing things they\u2019re not willing to do and make our brand a little more interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is, clearly, the open space for the Islanders to walk into. <\/p>\n

\"MatthewMatthew Schaefer celebrates with the crowd after the Islanders\u2019 March 1 win. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll never have the innate gravitas of the Yankees, Knicks or Rangers, but those teams take a much more buttoned-up approach to their brands.<\/p>\n

Mathieu Darche has allowed the Islanders to embrace modernity with open arms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"KellyKelly Cheeseman is pictured while with the Kings in 2018. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cIt kind of allows fans, young kids who maybe their grandfathers and grandmothers were Rangers fans \u2014 they want to walk in the door with their Islanders shirts. We love that,\u201d Cheeseman said. \u201cThey\u2019re 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schaefer\u2019s presence has made life immeasurably easier<\/a> for the Islanders\u2019 marketing department.<\/p>\n

Cheeseman said the club started to see a turn in attendance around Thanksgiving, which has stuck.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re leading the league in social media content and engagement, and a lot of it is because of what [Schaefer\u2019s] doing,\u201d Cheeseman said. \u201cThen you look at something like this week. He breaks Phil Housley\u2019s [rookie scoring for a defenseman] record, he\u2019s 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\u2019s had a really good willingness to get out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cheeseman also said there is a focus on \u201crelaunching\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe campus is finally ready,\u201d Cheeseman said. \u201cWe 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\u2019t really had a grand opening. We want to take the moment and really build on it.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tOn the ice from Long Island\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Islanders by Ethan Sears, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cThe train station wasn\u2019t quite ready [in 2021]. The parking wasn\u2019t quite ready or really open.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another key factor, left unsaid: The team was nowhere near as good as expected, and attendance dropped off as a result.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a problem anymore. <\/p>\n

And the Islanders are trying to take as much advantage as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 The change in the Islanders\u2019 approach off the ice this season might be more dramatic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[38006,394,385,99],"class_list":["post-501351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-matthew-schaefer","tag-new-york-islanders","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}