If you’re watching tonight’s Leafs game and can’t read some of the signs painted on the rinkboards at the Air Canada Centre, don’t worry.

Those ads aren’t for you.

Instead, the rinkboard ads written in Chinese are aimed at the roughly 300,000 Chinese households expected to tune into Saturday’s game on CCTV5. Ten sponsors will participate in the cultural exchange, with their signs offering varied messages, from simple greetings to all-out ads.

MasterCard’s ad features the company’s logo alongside the message “Hello, China,” while Purolator’s board hails the company as the “Canadian Express Pioneer.”

Meanwhile, Hero Certified Burgers’ sign declares the company will “Really love Chinese ice hockey fans.”

On one level, the ads are a goodwill gesture designed to mark the end of the first year of the NHL’s relationship with China’s national broadcaster. Saturday’s game is the last of 12 Leafs games on CCTV’s regular season schedule, and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment says Leafs broadcasts in China reach as many households as a regional broadcast of a Leafs game in Canada does.

But the ad is also part of an increasingly aggressive strategy to transform the Leafs from Canadian phenomenon into a worldwide sports brand, a campaign that has gained momentum since Tim Leiweke took over as MLSE president last summer.

“It’s no secret we’re looking to grow the company,” says Dave Hopkinson, MLSE’s chief commercial officer. “Tim has challenged us to think globally.”

While the Leafs hope to join clubs like Manchester United and the New York Yankees as global sports industry powerhouses, Man U and the Yankees have attributes the Leafs lack.

Like recent championship trophies.

While it may not bother new fans overseas that the club hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967, Ryerson University sports marketing professor Cheri Bradish says winning a championship would win support in China, or any other country the Leafs hope to expand the brand.

“Winning is always the best barometer, and the easiest way to accomplish (brand growth),” she says. “Building that out will also include educating the global market about hockey. . . How do you expose markets to the feel of the game?”

Hopkinson calls the Leafs’ current efforts to win a Chinese audience “a toe in the water,” but he expects the club to dive in as the NHL expands its presence there, and as Chinese sports culture embraces the sport as part of its bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

But interest in hockey in China is so nascent there’s no way to write the phrase “ice hockey” in Chinese. So Hero Burgers’ ad can be also translated as “Really love Chinese ice-ball fans.”

But Burlington-based sports marketing consultant Keith McIntyre says the Leafs are positioned to capitalize, placing themselves at the forefront of Chinese hockey culture, as the sport grows there. He envisions the Leafs emulating Man U and several NBA squads and embarking on pre-season tours aimed at gaining traction in the Chinese market.

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“Revenue and growth opportunities really are maxed out,” he says. “This truly gives the Leafs a totally new market and can really increase the value of the brand because it’s so accessible through digital technology.”

Hopkinson says the prices sponsors paid for rinkboards this season didn’t factor in the Chinese TV audience, mainly because nobody was sure how many Chinese viewers would tune in. But next season, he says, Chinese TV viewership could figure into sponsorship agreements that include rinkboard ads, and nudge the price upward.

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