NFL Fan Engagement
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NFL Fan Engagement

Category
Digital, Strategy, UX, Video
About This Project

Setup

Teams and leagues are pouring time and energy into winning millennials, Gen Z and the kids coming up behind them. Those fans have more entertainment at their fingertips than any generation before, and every app, game and creator is fighting for the same attention. The NFL wanted a point of view on how to engage young fans early and turn them into fans for life.

What I Led

I led the thought leadership work from strategy through concept design. We set one directional lens for every idea:

  • Heroes and villains: players become characters kids can cheer for, and rivalries become stories.
  • Physical plus digital: the game lives on the field and on the screen at the same time.
  • Role models, friends and family: fandom is passed down and shared.

Every concept also had to be social, habit-forming, and engaging and experiential.

From there I led seven exercises, each pushed forward with the technology kids use today:

  • Virtual reality: puts kids in the pocket with a quarterback.
  • Second screen: a companion app that explains every flag in a kid’s words, then gets the couch predicting the next play.
  • STEM: a series of episodes and playable labs that turn a hit or a spiral into physics. We built it with the help of the National Science Foundation and Sports Science.
  • Tabletop games with OSMO: kids draw up plays with real pieces and watch them run on screen.
  • Train with a Superstar: short workouts where players coach kids through the phone camera.
  • NFL PLAY 60: a tracker and leaderboard that turns daily activity into streaks, family squads and a 32-club board.
  • Snapchat geofilters: stadium Lenses that make every game a moment worth sharing.

What We Delivered

We delivered a connected playbook of seven experiments on one platform, each built around a moment kids already love. Together they follow a young fan from discovering the game, to learning it, playing it and belonging to it, so football becomes part of their week long before it’s part of their calendar. Credit to the National Science Foundation and Sports Science for their help with this project.

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