There’s Logic Behind Disney ‘Ducks’ Daffiness : Marketing: Hockey purists might object to name, but potential for tie-ins and widened appeal of NHL to kids could pay off big.

Dead ducks, lame ducks, ducks on the pond.

Make jokes if you must, but professional sports merchandising experts are drooling over the marketing potential that Walt Disney Co. created when it opted to name its National Hockey League franchise the Mighty Ducks.

If that weren’t enough, Disney also invited fans attending home games at “The Pond in Anaheim” to welcome the team by tooting on duck calls. And, Disney said, it anticipates a fall or winter release date for a sequel that will build on Disney’s original “Mighty Ducks” movie.

The flurry of activity left many in the hockey world gasping for breath. Hockey purists might not appreciate Disney on ice, but the sport probably won’t be the same after the Ducks take to the Pond.

“With one fell swoop, Disney has cleaned up hockey’s image,” said Steve Herz, marketing director of Athletes & Artists, a marketing company in New York whose client list includes the U.S. hockey team that won the 1980 Olympic gold medal. “Disney is marketing hockey as family entertainment, and it’s never been done that way before.”

Other major league sports have dramatically expanded the number of women and children who watch games on television, but hockey remains largely a male domain. Recasting the sport as family fun “will be a challenge for them,” said Bob Wagner, director of sales and marketing for the California Angels.

Off the ice, Disney’s involvement with professional hockey should help the NHL “reach its marketing potential in this country,” said Steve Disson, president of D&F; Consulting Group, a sports marketing company based in Washington.

NHL franchise owners will be watching closely because Disney “has been real smart about identifying its properties with each other,” Herz said. “They’ve got films, parks, stores, and now they have hockey under that one umbrella. . . . They’ve got themselves one terrific entertainment package.”

That prowess should serve Disney well, Wagner said, in the competition between sports teams and “a multitude of other different entertainment venues”--movies, restaurants, theme parks--for consumers’ discretionary dollars.

Given Disney’s marketing expertise, ticket sales probably will be only part of the Mighty Ducks’ corporate game plan.

“They hope to fill the stadium with lots of kids and their parents,” Herz said. “And those kids are going to buy lots of jerseys with ‘Mighty Ducks’ on them, coloring books and score cards. . . . They’re going to make tons of cash.”

The Ducks will be groomed by the same consumer product and licensing experts who in recent months turned animated-movie stars the Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast into household words. Buoyed by those two product lines, Disney’s sales of consumer goods during 1992 hit $1 billion for the first time.

That was nearly twice the 1992 revenue generated through product licensing handled by the NHL’s marketing arm. By comparison, major league baseball’s retail sales rose to $2.4 billion last year. And sales of official National Basketball League products are projected to hit $1.8 billion for 1993.

Disney’s marketing strategy--recasting hockey as family entertainment--generally has drawn praise from observers.

“Anything that helps attract more people to the game, especially young people, is a good thing,” said Ricky Clemons, public relations manager for Major League Baseball Properties. “I really think they have the right idea by going after the kids because that’s the next market for all of sports.”

Some observers question whether hockey, an inherently rough game that includes its share of fist-fighting, might tarnish Disney’s wholesome image.

Just as likely, though, is that Disney’s involvement might change how the sport itself is viewed.

Just two years ago, the NHL’s president acknowledged that the league needed to enforce rules that are designed to curb “bench-clearing brawls, slashing, premeditated fights and high sticking.”

“Hockey has got to do more to curb violence,” marketing expert Disson said. The game’s physical nature evidently pleases its predominantly adult, male audience, he said, but the sport needs “a broader base.”