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The NHL 15 trailer released on Monday showed off the incredible graphics and amazing amounts of arena detail poured in to this year’s edition of the game—and ended with a subtle dig at the NHL’s female fans.

The mock Instagrams all portrayed females selfie-ing at a game, and captions include a “#MCM” (Man Crush Monday), “Still don’t understand offsides,” and the classic, “Kings Game with ma gurrllzzz!!”

Really?

While Instagrams in general aren’t exactly known for their intellectual fortitude, is it really necessary for a league with pretty well documented issues marketing to and attracting female fans to tack on this bizarre and condescending image at the end of an advertisement for the sport’s marquee video game?

Maybe I’m looking too deeply into this—and full disclosure, I think the game looks pretty awesome—but it’s kind of absurd that NHL 15 took steps to mock female hockey fans as part of the “real-life” arena experience in the game. I’m willing to wager that most female fans go to games because they actually enjoy the sport, not because their “man crush” is on the ice. It’s also upsetting to see how EA Sports embraced the “dumb puck bunny” stereotype with the “Still don’t understand offsides” caption. Again, this is portrayed in the ad as a realistic arena experience. Offsides isn’t that difficult of a concept.

If EA Sports and the NHL thinks that their female fans have no clue what’s happening at a game, or are just there for a cool selfie or a glimpse at a celebrity crush, there’s no question why more women aren’t becoming hockey fans.

While I’m not overly torn up by this, I’m mostly just disappointed that the images were approved to be included in the trailer for the game. They’re not funny—they’re just sexist and dumb. EA Sports and the NHL can certainly do better than this.

10 COMMENTS

  1. Yeah this is a pretty odd marketing strategy… I think it would be less appalling if one of the selfie takers was mixed in with the rest of the “realistic fan crowd,” rather than several of them completely on their own at the very end of the promo. To put them at the end, even after the award recognition, box shots, and link to the demo, calls them to attention even more. Very demeaning – it was a poor addition to the game in general, and to the ad, but to go as far as to single that feature out at the end is not only poor editing, but like you said, a blatant mocking of a huge portion of the NHL’s fanbase.

  2. Not saying I agree with it but at the end of the day this idea belonged to EA not the NHL. The NHL licence probably don’t go much further than names and registered team logos, outside of that the creative control is most likely left up to the guys that make the worlds top sporting games with little input from the league.

  3. this is quite bizarre. i think they should add hardcore male and female fans, as well as bandwagon male and female fans. im sure there are also tons of males who go to games that don’t know much, so why not represent everyone instead of just the ridiculous stereotypes? also they should make creating a female player in the game just as in depth as male players., cause that has been quite awful so far.

  4. This isn’t a big deal. Why do people keep crying about stuff like this? It’s not offensive. These types of people do exist. My girlfriend has gone to over 15 Dallas Stars games with me — guess what? She still has no idea what offsides is even after explaining it to her..yet, shocker, she’s still a fan of going and watching it.

    EA Sports isn’t mocking anyone.

    And Ron, the leagues have a lot of say in how their product is represented in video games. The Madden franchise wasn’t even allowed to utilize tattoos up until recently because the NFL didn’t authorize it.

  5. The thing is, it is a pretty accurate portrayal of women on Instagram who take a million and one pictures of themselves a day. A lot of girls nowadays are fairly shallow and self evolved, you only have to spend a few minutes on social media to see that.

  6. @Eric Petruno

    Quit being a d-bag. If you knew anything about game development, you wouldn’t be making ignorant statements like that.

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