With Albert Breer on vacation, we’re bringing back our annual tradition of guest writers filling in for his Monday Morning Quarterback column. This column was written by Brian Rolapp, NFL media manager and businessman. Check out Cardinals defensive coordinator Vance Joseph’s column last week.
How did you fall in love with the NFL? If you’re like me, it’s because you discovered America’s Game on one of America’s most famous inventions: television.
In the early 1960s, Commissioner Pete Rozelle and the NFL owners had a unique idea to bring NFL football into every home in America. Television made this possible for the first time. In 1950, about one in 10 living rooms had a television, according to Britannica. By 1960, eight out of 10 homes had purchased a TV set, making television the best way to catch up on a sports-mad nation. The thinking was – if the NFL was widely available – the country would like what they saw. And they did.
Rolapp is the NFL’s head of media and operations.
Since then, the NFL has turned that idea into our flagship – to serve current NFL fans and create new ones by reaching as many people as possible. Needless to say, today’s world is much different than it was in 1960. We all interact with the world in new and increasingly dynamic ways, not just by watching television. We stream, read, text, post, create, and even tweet and photograph—things Pete Rozelle never imagined. So while the goal of achieving everything remains the same, the way we do it is not the same.
Over the past decade, we’ve spent a lot of time with our fans learning how they want to engage with the NFL, and working closely with our media and technology partners, we’ve evolved our strategy to increase not only the digital distribution of our games, but also countless ways for fans to follow and interact with our sport.
Much of this work culminated in our latest round of media deals announced in the spring of 2021. Together with our media partners, we focused on a few priorities to make NFL football more accessible and better for fans. Let me outline these priorities and how our fans will benefit now and in the future:
Our fans have come to expect the best, most competitive games possible, and over the past few years we’ve introduced many innovations to the game experience to meet those expectations, including:
Expanded Season and Playoffs: New in ’21, we added a 17th regular season game while shortening the preseason to three games. We talked to the fans for several years and agreed that we need to limit the pre-season. As a result, we were able to create another week of important football.
In ’21, that extra week of football was significant to say the least, as 14 of the 16 games in Week 18 last season featured at least one team in the playoffs or a playoff game.
This came after expanding our playoffs by adding an additional playoff team to each conference, creating two additional wild card games. As a result, we were able to not only bring more playoff excitement to fans, but also improve the regular season. For example, now only the top seed in each conference gets a bye to the wild-card round, with added emphasis on having the best record in the AFC or NFC conferences during the regular season.
Flexible Scheduling: A top priority each year is creating the best possible schedule and leveraging data to place the right games in the right TV timeslots. Technology has greatly improved this process and now, thanks to the computing power of our friends at Amazon Web Services, we have 5,000 computers in the cloud generating over 50,000 potential schedules, giving us the best chance of finding the perfect schedule.
This cloud computing power is needed to help us sift through thousands of conflicts in a season, including stadium lockouts in the form of concerts, college football games or potential postseason baseball games, travel and reputation requirements around international games, and maximizing late-season divisional games. in season.
But there’s no crystal ball that can predict every twist and turn during an NFL season, and that’s what makes a flexible schedule so important.
Flexible scheduling now allows NBC to adjust a Sunday Night Football game with just one week’s notice to ensure the most compelling game played in prime time.
The flexible schedule is extremely helpful late in the season when games are on Saturdays. Within a relatively short runway, these Saturday matchups can be tailored to produce the most compelling games available nationally.
Finally, beginning in ’23, we will increase our flexible schedule efforts to include Monday Night Football, increasing the likelihood that every Monday night game will matter.
While our scheduling crystal ball isn’t perfect—it combines data, cloud computing, and flexible scheduling—it’s getting clearer every season.
Changes to Week 18: The newly expanded regular season has made Week 18 crucial for teams fighting for a playoff spot and, as a result, great theater for fans looking to watch all the drama.
Week 18 games are slated to begin with two Saturday games leading into 14 Sunday games with an emphasis on creating compelling matchups with playoff berths on the line, culminating in a drama-filled Sunday night game to close out the regular season. With this, we are one step closer to making every national team match in the last week of the season meaningful.
Weeks 1-18 Doubleheaders: Introduced just last season, this new change means fans can watch four Sunday afternoon games on CBS and Fox in their local market during Weeks 1-18 , one more than any other weekend.
All of these changes, from the introduction of an expanded season to an increased emphasis on flexible scheduling and innovation around our schedule, are all about giving fans the best, most exciting and important games possible every week throughout the season.
More digital streaming
While traditional television is still an important way many of our fans experience the NFL (and will be for the foreseeable future), we recognize that platforms such as Amazon Prime Video, Peacock, Paramount+ and ESPN+ are increasingly important to our fans, especially for fans under the age of 30. On the same subject : 10 Historical Images That Video Games Should Have.
A key decision we made in our recent media deals was partnering with Amazon Prime Video for Thursday Night Football. TNF started 15 years ago with a small number of Thursday games on the NFL Network, knowing that fans were demanding more football. After a great deal of work to ensure that Thursday night football was competitive and entertaining while prioritizing player health and safety, Thursday night was undoubtedly the night of football as viewership increased for the second consecutive season according to Sports Media Watch.
Digital viewership for our games has doubled over the past three seasons, drawing audiences that approach or even exceed the television viewership of other professional sports leagues. A perfect example is Super Bowl LVI, which saw an average audience of over 11 million fans on digital platforms alone. This digital viewership will continue to grow rapidly.
The evolution of TNF took its biggest step this season, moving exclusively to the digital platform. It’s no different than 35 years ago when the NFL first created a package of live NFL games on ESPN, creating a whole new way to watch football. Back then, not every household had cable TV, but that was changing. When TNF launches in week 2 on September 15th, Prime Video will help us take the next step in the development of TNF and we couldn’t be more excited.
And the NFL will soon launch its own direct-to-consumer service called NFL+.
NFL+ was born out of our belief that to better serve our current fans and help grow new ones, we must increasingly meet fans where they are. NFL+, a subscription video service housed within the NFL app, will do just that.
NFL+ will give fans access to live local and national NFL games on mobile devices, live out-of-market preseason games on all devices, live local and national audio for every game, on-demand NFL Network broadcasts, NFL film archives and more— provides soccer flexibility so fans never have to miss a soccer game again.
More innovation to game broadcasts
Today, there are approximately 184 million NFL fans. And like any group, NFL fans are individuals with diverse views, preferences and backgrounds united around the game we all love. Technology not only allows us to increase the availability of NFL games through digital streaming for fans, but also helps us better serve their individual tastes. Innovative and different game presentations – we call them “altcasts” – offer fans entirely new ways to experience an NFL game. Some notable examples include:
Another example of innovation is Next Gen Stats, the NFL’s player and football tracking initiative that has touched and changed nearly every part of the pro football ecosystem. See the article : Nigerian football joins the video game big league as local stars get avatars.
In partnership with the NFL Players Association, we installed tracking devices on each player’s shoulder pads and inside the football. This allows the NFL to collect countless data points, many in real time. This data includes location, velocity, and acceleration, which allow more complex statistics to be calculated, such as completion probability and rushing yards above expectations.
We share these statistics and insights with our TV partners, fans and football staff, allowing everyone to better understand what’s happening on the pitch. In addition, the NFL office may use the data to evaluate potential rule changes to improve the game. We’re even using the data to create a digital athlete, a virtual representation of an NFL player that can be used to better predict and eventually prevent player injuries.
More ways to experience the NFL
Given that over the past five years (2017-2021), the NFL has delivered 48 of the top 50 and 88 of the 100 most-watched programs on television (Sports Business Journal), it’s no surprise that much attention is being paid to how televised games are changing. However, almost all of our fans spend time with NFL football after the games are over and during the season. See the article : Mother of 4 makes a living teaching how to play video games: ‘I’m breaking this stigma’. It’s no surprise that technology has a big impact even in these times.
To see that, look no further than social media. Today, we have successful partnerships with all major social media platforms, reach over 600 million fans and are now the fastest growing sports league in the US on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Twitter. Last year, fans watched NFL social media videos more than 12 billion times, highlighted by numerous activations on some of the world’s most popular platforms. Examples include:
If all of this sounds like a lot of work and innovation, it is. If you think we’re done, trust me, we’re not.
NFL Sunday Ticket has been a fan staple since its inception in 1994, allowing die-hard fans to watch every Sunday NFL game. However, we believe it can be much better and are planning to relaunch NFL Sunday Ticket for the 2023 season. Although we are not ready to reveal it yet, one thing we can say is that it will be more innovative, accessible and digital.
At the same time, we’re also envisioning a new future for NFL Media, our collection of owned and operated media assets that include NFL Network, NFL.com, the NFL App and NFL RedZone. For nearly 20 years, with the support and leadership of our ownership, we have been able to build NFL Media into a leader in the sports media space.
NFL Media looks a lot different than it did in 2003 when we launched the NFL Network. We’ve added multiple digital platforms, put games on the NFL Network, and created massive scale events with the draft, merger, and release schedule, just to name a few highlights.
The changes and consolidation occurring in the media landscape create opportunities to take NFL Media to the next level of growth and provide fans with even greater coverage of their favorite sport. In the not-too-distant future, you’ll see all-new NFL media giving fans access to an even better NFL Network, NFL Movies and RedZone NFL on your terms.
So what has changed since Rozelle and the NFL owners laid out their television plan all those years ago? Well, everything and nothing at the same time.
On the one hand, technology has changed everything about how we consume the NFL content we love. There is much more to watch, read and listen to than ever before, all made possible by the technology in our pockets and the wireless internet around us. At the same time, the NFL’s mission to reach as many people as possible using the dominant media platforms of the time is the same today as it was then.
Regardless, one thing is certain: there’s no better time to be an NFL fan.
