Commentary

Snapchat, NFL Deal: Lots Of Short Completions

The NFL aggressively markets itself. Its new deal with Snapchat is further proof that it’s all in with social media and online video. It also will have a big presence on Twitter, where 10 NFL games will be streamed. And, it renewed another deal with YouTube.

Why, the league is harder to miss than a deflated football tossed by Tom Brady. It’s so impossible to miss, in fact, that its cover-the-earth streaming strategy might make its presence seem so ubiquitous it will miss the point of doing it.

Clearly, though, don’t you think that by next season, seeing NFL games on any device, on any given Sunday, Monday, Thursday or Friday will be a solidly done deal?  And don’t you think the NFL isn’t reading those same dire reports about cord-cutting/cord-never millennials? That’s a league that knows how to create a strong offense.

Snapchat and the NFL re-upped a partnership that now adds the NFL to Snapchat’s inner-ring of Discover partners; that’s a first for any league.

The NFL will produce video and behind the scenes shots for both Discover and Live Stories. Supposedly, there will be new stuff for every game, every week. That’s no small endeavor. Snapchat and the NFL sell the ad inventory.

The NFL said 70 million people around the world saw Snapchat content last season, when it created 58 Live Stories. That may seem like a drop in the bucket after this season. There are 256 NFL games each season, and the NFL expects to make Live Stories content about each and every one of them.

Pro sports, and certainly the NFL, has led the way toward controlling its message.

Television contracts are so expensive and so valued that networks are loathe to emphasize the sport’s seamier side, but that’s hardly the biggest plus to deals like this one. With blanket coverage of the NFL on TV and now on social sites, the NFL just increases its hold on sports fans, pretty much all year long and definitely in the fall.

The NFL/Snapchat association even includes customer Geofilters for all 32 teams and the ability for fans to add art overlays to their snaps at some NFL sites chosen by the league. Sweet.

For the NFL, its Snapchat association might be a powerful antidote to what some see as waning interest by younger fans less interested in team sports and the dubious ethics of some of the NFL’s top players.

So when the NFL notes this Snapchat stuff will “uniquely programmed for NFL fans on Snapchat,” one can assume that means produced with special attention toward Snapchat’s millennials, an audience the app has by the bushel.


pj@mediapost.com
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