NFL’s next step in ‘future-proofing’ audience begins with Super Bowl ad

For the NFL, there’s no such thing as too much – be it billions of dollars in revenue to capture, games to stretch into a schedule, prime-time TV windows to dominate and more millions of fans to bring into what’s increasingly become the only foolproof entertainment option in an increasingly cluttered landscape.

And the league’s conquer-all-frontiers mentality extends even into dunking on its most loyal sponsors on the nation’s most revered secular holiday – Super Bowl Sunday.

Two years after winning USA TODAY’s 2020 Ad Meter title with its minute-long “The 100-Year Game” spot that celebrated the league’s diamond anniversary, the NFL has returned with another two-minute epic that incorporates traditional filmmaking, emerging technology and above all, a commitment to the league’s grand plan to “future-proof” its audience.

Helmets off.

In “Bring Down the House,” the NFL will again lean heavily on personality to sell its most important assets – the game and its players – to an audience already tuning in for football.

Yet even for the mightiest global sports brand, an audience of 100 million is no reason to get complacent – not in an expand-or-die media and entertainment jungle.

“The danger of complacency is real,” Tim Ellis, the NFL’s chief marketing officer since August 2018, told USA TODAY Sports. “Since the day I stepped into the NFL, I have been ringing the bell of urgency. We cannot afford to be complacent. We have to grow our core audiences – younger fans, female fans and Latino fans. With a sense of urgency, we have to focus on that.

“The fight in the attention economy is real. I’m in charge of future-proofing the NFL and these are the fans of the future. If they don’t become fans and then become parents, they don’t bring others in.

“You can’t make a fan when they’re 34 years old.”

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