All sports are chasing lucrative-but-elusive potential fanbases to sustain and grow their business with social media a prime route to reach them. Posting official clips on TikTok or Facebook is nowhere near enough.
The NFL has shown how engagement can be driven solidly upwards by working with content creators and social platforms — provided the league is willing to cede control over output.
Content creators — experts in educating, entertaining and exciting their audience and communities — are being drafted to provide fans with multifaceted ways to engage with the game and their favorite teams.
A panel at VidCon, “The NFL’s Trailblazing Approach to Creator Partnerships,” explored how the NFL has collaborated with creators and social media platforms to extend the sport’s influence on a new, younger, and diverse generation of fans.
Its strategy youth marketing program kicked off six years ago, explained Ian Trombetta, the NFL’s SVP of social, influencer and content marketing.
“It started with listening to the players and the types of things they wanted to do off the field, and we really ramped up our content on the field with too,” Trombetta said. “It was about listening to them around fashion, gaming, all the different things they’re interested in ways in which we can support them at the league.
“What that opens up is a lot of opportunities for us throughout the year, whether it’s in season or in the offseason. Increasingly we’re looking to pair them with creators and with partners like YouTube and then weaving that into our programming throughout the year.”
The results have enabled the NFL to “reach younger audiences, more multicultural audiences. Even global audiences now are tuning in in ways that they hadn’t before,” he continued.
“Even on our own channels the Creator content actually outperformed some of our own lead content, which is great.”
Another key component has been securing buy-in to the strategy from all 32 clubs. Trombetta said that wouldn’t have happened five years ago. “But today, whether you’re in Green Bay, Miami, you’re in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, you have a creative strategy that’s always on,” he explained.
“That’s been really important for us. They do believe in providing more access to players and to the Creators who have to co-create together and who needs access to the facilities, access to coaches and legends.”
One of the NFL’s star creators is Adam W, who has worked with the league for five years and has 55 million followers on social media. He aspired to be an NFL player and is now working up close and personal with its stars, albeit in a different way.
“They’ve been so cool,” Adam W says of the NFL marketing team. “A lot of times I’ll get a brief which is very open and allows me to still be who I am on camera with my videos. That makes it very organic, but at the same time pushing the narrative of the NFL and kind of combining the world of my humor with the sport.”
A recent video post of his with Dolphins wide receiver Tyreek Hill generated 30 million views. In total his videos were watched 14 billion times last year alone.
YouTube head of creators and gaming, Kim Larson, who acts as a creator commissioner, confirmed the new engaged audience demographic is “younger, more diverse, more global,” and said the platform had a of couple goals in partnership with the NFL.
“The first was to diversify and bring in new fans,” Larson said. “The second was to create an unbelievable viewing experience. And I think we did both.”
She stressed that the League had showed respect for creators from the get-go. “I felt like they were empowered with a sense of editorial control and ownership.
“They gave us all the tools and incredible access at all the tentpole events, the Pro Bowl, the Draft, the Super Bowl, individual games, and then archival footage. Opening up the IP and, more importantly, allowing creators to retain their monetization rights against that was huge.”
It helps that the NFL’s players are mostly in their early twenties and have grown up with social media. “They’ve grown up following different creators. There’s a lot of respect there,” Trombetta said.
“There’s opportunities everywhere for players now. You don’t have to be Tom Brady to actually create a name in this space. You can be an offensive lineman who isn’t getting the most attention on a week to week basis. That’s why they’re really starting to embrace collaboration with creators.”
The league plans to build on this foundation in tandem with YouTube and creators. One goal is to mine the NFL’s extensive video archive.
“We really haven’t figured out the best way to tap into that,” said Larson. “It’s just so voluminous. So we’re working with [the NFL] content team to figure out how we surface more of that, and get that to the right creators at the right time. We’re going to just put more gas on the fire.”
Trombetta is eyeing international growth in Latin America, where the league broke ground by staging a first game in Brazil.
“We’re going to have creators all over that both from the States as well as in Brazil,” he said.
The panel also discussed the importance of authenticity and data-driven decisions to creating content that resonates with diverse audiences and drives long-term engagement and loyalty.
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