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A senior marketing manager at NFL argued the league had nothing to do with helping design the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelcethe pop superstar’s ultra-viral courtship Taylor Swift.
Marissa Solis, senior vice president of global brand and consumer marketing for the NFL, addressed the phenomenon during a panel at Advertising Week about how sports leagues are trying to reach the elusive Gen Z audience. Once the romance went public in September, she said, the league could only do its best to react and make the most of it.
Communicating this relationship offers “a perfect example” of the challenge of connecting with Gen Z fans, who are “fast-paced and ever-changing,” Solis said. “It’s really, really hard to get them and be ahead of them.” The league “learned from the best, Ms. Taylor Swift,” she said with a smile: to lean on off-field development, which also increased television ratings at a time when Swift was also preparing for the wide release of her Eras Tour concert film.
“This thing happened like This“, Solis marveled, snapping his fingers. “People think maybe we had something to do with it. Absolutely not. We didn’t know anything. We knew what you knew and we followed on social media. Travis went to her concert and asked her to maybe come to a game. We didn’t know she was going to show up. And once that happened, she showed up to a game and in a Instantly, literally in a second, it went viral. Luckily, we have an incredible team of specialists working to promote it across the league’s social media channels.
“All you can do is be there and be ready for the moment,” Solis said. “When that happened, we were ready to launch content like ‘Football 101 for Swifties,’ making sure that Swifties who had never watched a soccer game, didn’t understand what soccer was , at least knew the rules of the game. But here’s what’s most important: I bet you didn’t know, there are thousands of them – thousands – major NFL fans who don’t know who Taylor Swift is. As her fellow panelists laughed, she continued, “It was also an opportunity for us to educate our core NFL fan on who she is. You may have seen some of the video content and social content surrounding the Chiefs dancing their victory laps to Taylor Swift songs. It’s a way to involve our target audience.
The league aimed to “be a student of the culture and be ready when the time comes,” Solis concluded. “You can’t be early, but you can be just there so you can be sure to take advantage of it and fully expand your audience.
The panel, moderated by Matt Fasano, SVP of Next Gen at Wassermannalso featured Melissa Brenner, executive vice president of digital media for the NBA, and Anne Marie Giansutsos, CMO of the Drone Racing League. The central theme was aimed at a predominantly novice audience, who watch sports content mainly via social media. “It’s not about them sitting around and watching a 4-hour game,” Solis said of Gen Z. “We need to create snackable content that they enjoy.”
Lifestyle content, a way to help young fans connect more fully with players, has been described within the NFL as the league’s “no helmet” strategy, the executive added, noting that the NBA has long led the way in this area.
Brenner said that each social platform has its own algorithm and sensitivity and is also constantly evolving, so it is crucial to adapt to each of them “in a targeted and tailor-made way”. The NBA has a joint venture with Warner Bros. Discovery to operate NBA.com and create official digital content, she noted.
The NBA’s global nature helps expand its reach, Brenner said, with about 25% of players and two-thirds of social media followers coming from outside the United States. The league also takes a “more democratic approach to fan-generated content” than fans do. other professional sports operations, she said. “We have imposed quite strict restrictions. They are influencers. There is a virality, it works. Being “written and published” is the main goal.
