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Every year during the month of November the attention shifts to cancer awareness through the very popular Movember campaign. Players, coaches, and fans all take part in growing facial hair, specifically mustaches, throughout the month in order to raise awareness for cancer.
The NHL also attempts to do its part in raising cancer awareness with their Hockey Fights Cancer campaign. Throughout the years I have always thought the NHL did a quality job with its campaign by selling specialized merchandise as a vehicle for raising money to fight cancer. That was until yesterday.
A few years back I was given a Hockey Fights Cancer tie for Christmas, since receiving the tie it has been one of my favorite ones in my collection. The colors are sharp and it's for a great cause. Yesterday I went to the NHL website with the intention of purchasing another Hockey Fights Cancer tie.
After reading some of the information provided by the NHL's website I left without making the purchase.
The ties are expensive, I knew that going in, but what I didn't realize was just how little of the money actually went to "fighting cancer".
The tie is $63.71 and after you add the
reasonable ground shipping cost of $18.34 the total cost is $82.05.
Here is where I had a major issue:
"You can show your support by purchasing Hockey Fights Cancer merchandise such as: ties, t-shirts, bracelets, caps and hats at Shop.NHL.com or Shop.Canada.NHL.com. Depending on the type of merchandise sold, from USD $2.15 to $7.26 of each sale will be donated to the NHL's charitable foundations* toward the Hockey Fights Cancer initiative.
* The amount to be donated for each category is as follows: (1) Commemorative ties by Vineyard Vines - $7.26"
So let me get this straight, I'm buying a tie that is being marketed for a charity and only 8.8% of my purchase is actually going towards the cause?!
Sorry, I can't get behind that.
The tie couldn't possibly cost more than $20 to make (if I'm being generous) which means at a minimum there is $40 leftover of profit. Combine that with the fact that the tie could be shipped USPS 1st class for less than $4 and you have quite a racket.
I'm all for paying good money for a quality product in the name of charity, but not when the amount given to the actual charity is so low. The profit margins at the NHL shop are most likely very favorable. They don't need to keep those same margins on the items they mark for charity.
I realize that there are a lot of charities out there that also do not give the majority of your money to the intended cause, and that is why I am selective.
Hockey Fights Cancer is a lot like a Craig Adams fight. You are technically in the fight, but you aren't in it to win it.
Hopefully in the future more money can go to actually fighting cancer.
Thanks for reading!
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