North American ice hockey’s NHL has added the US Postal Service (USPS) as a new regional partner, with the pair to collaborate on original content as part of the agreement.
As the official shipping sponsor of the league, USPS will gain exclusive marketing rights across the NHL’s marketing, digital, and social media channels and will work together with the league to produce original content that will be distributed across the NHL and USPS platforms.
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The USPS will activate its sponsorship at NHL events, including the Winter Classic and Stadium Series, with this year’s 2026 Stadium Series in Tampa to feature a USPS-backed hockey skill activity and photobooth where fans can create a postcard with their image that can be mailed directly from the exhibit.
Jason Jazayeri, NHL Group vice president of business development, said: “USPS is one of the most iconic American institutions and brands, with a tremendously vibrant 250-year heritage, and we are proud to welcome USPS to the NHL family.
“We are excited to create powerful content and experiences together and to delight the fans of both the NHL and USPS.”
The new agreement adds to the NHL’s growing commercial portfolio, which includes partnership with global brands across technology (Sony, Verizon), sports betting (BetMGM, DraftKings, Betway, Caesars), apparel (Fanatics, Lululemon), food/beverage (BodyArmor, Budweiser, Pepsi, Chipotle, Danone), and other sectors like insurance (Sonnet) and automotive (Hyundai, Honda).
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By GlobalDataIn October, the league signed deals with prediction market firms Polymarket and Kalshi, with the two US companies given access to NHL proprietary data, as well as rights to use NHL marks, logos, and designations, on their platforms and products.
In the same month, the NHL renewed its regional partnership with Interwetten, the European online sports betting firm, in Austria and Germany, while announcing a renewal of its long-standing partnership with car rental giant Enterprise.
The NHL and its NHLPA players union announced a renewal of their long-standing partnership with car rental giant Enterprise.
The league has also seen an increase in visibility across Europe since hiring experienced soccer executive Joris de Boer to lead its broadcast rights and sales in the European market last August and opening its European office in Switzerland in November.
Across Europe the NHL has several key media rights deals in place, mostly with pay-TV providers and OTT services such as Viaplay, which holds the rights to the NHL across its biggest European markets, the Baltics and the Nordic countries, while in other major markets like Czechia Nova Sport holds rights, and in the new office’s base, Switzerland, the league is broadcast by MySports.
The NHL also holds prominent commercial partnerships across the region, including with sports betting firms Veikkaus and Unibet in the priority markets of Finland and Sweden, respectively, owing to the competition’s popularity, particularly in central and northern Europe.
Most recently, Swiss pay-TV player MySports struck an exclusive deal to air the league in Switzerland for the 2025-26 campaign, while Polish public-service broadcaster TVP picked up rights for the remainder of the season last week.
Further afield, it was announced in October that NHL games would be shown free-to-air in Australia for the first time after striking a new exclusive deal with commercial broadcaster Nine Network for the rest of the current season.
The NHL’s 2025-26 season is due to break from February 6 to 24 to accommodate the 2026 Olympic Winter Games, which will feature NHL players for the first time since 2014.
The break will see the regular season conclude in April, with the campaign culminating in the Stanley Cup Final in June.
