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League execs focus presentations on young fans

Millennials and Gen Z were a subject of extensive discussion at this year’s annual league meeting.

Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s head of media, discussed how to reach the younger generations in his opening remarks at the start of the meeting on Monday. Later in the week, Dawn Hudson, the league’s chief marketing officer, talked about them as well. The league even had a special session set aside for youth sports.

And clearly, the league’s first planned over-the-top streamed game in October (Buffalo vs. Jacksonville, from London) is being done in part as a way to reach a generation that doesn’t watch TV in the same way that older generations have done.

DONOVAN
Mark Donovan, president of the Kansas City Chiefs, said Hudson during her presentation noted that while millennials operate on two screens, Gen Z works on five. (The NFL did not make Hudson available for comment.)

Gen Z is loosely seen as people under the age of 20.

There are 10 million households that have cut the cord, Rolapp told SportsBusiness Journal, and that number is projected to double in five years.

Depending on which team executive you spoke with at the annual meeting, the NFL was either doing a great job focusing on the younger generation — or was doing a mediocre job. One team executive said it was about time the league focused on the subject, while Donovan, himself a former league marketing executive, said the NFL is doing a fine job.

Industry polling data suggests that other sports might have bigger issues addressing next-generation fans than the NFL (see chart), but one message that came from the presentations in Arizona is that the NFL cannot get complacent and rest on its stratospheric TV ratings — certainly not with more cord-cutters approaching.

LEAGUE’S BEST — TO BRAZIL?: The NFL’s international focus is quickly expanding beyond playing games in London. While that remains the core focus, and the three regular-season games scheduled there this year are already sold out, the league recently highlighted Germany and Brazil as countries of interest, in addition to the U.K., China, Mexico and Canada. The league’s international group suggested to the internal Pro Bowl working group the idea of playing the all-star game in Brazil in 2017, and that is something that is under consideration. Asked about the protests against the FIFA World Cup and issues related to the coming 2016 Summer Olympic Games in that country, Mark Waller, the NFL’s executive vice president of international, noted that the issues being highlighted there are similar to subjects seen around the world, and Brazil could be a big market for the NFL.

The 2016 Pro Bowl is in Honolulu, the game’s traditional home.

To handle to the increased international focus, the league is hiring a chief operating officer for the group. That hire is expected soon.

HIGHER CAP, HAPPIER RELATIONS?: Team sources are projecting a major increase in the salary cap over the next few years. That increase is tied to accelerators in the league’s network TV deals, and the hope for an ever bigger “Thursday Night Football” deal down the line.

One team source, who in the past has had negative comments about the NFL Players Association’s leadership, changed his tune and had kind words for the leadership at the annual meeting. NFLPA Executive Director DeMaurice Smith was re-elected earlier this month, and this source said it would have been a challenge if one of the other candidates for election had been selected and an outsider were coming into the position now. Perhaps there is hope still for the contentious league-union relationship. Higher caps will help a lot.

The Chiefs are near a sponsorship deal for their event company.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
SPONSOR FOR K.C. EVENT GROUP: The Kansas City Chiefs are close to selling a low-six-figure sponsorship to a hotel brand. So what, one may ask. Well, the sponsorship is not for the team, but instead for the club’s event company, Arrowhead Events. Formed in 2009, the year team Donovan arrived, the company stages nonfootball events at Arrowhead Stadium. This year’s lineup includes an international soccer friendly, a University of Missouri-BYU football game and several rock concerts, including one by the Rolling Stones.

Donovan expects the hotel sponsorship to be only the start in a new commercial sales opportunity for the club. It is believed to be a first for a sports team to sell a sponsorship for its events business.

CHIEFS GOING MOBILE: The Chiefs, the first NFL team to go entirely paperless in tickets, will allow fans to receive their tickets now on mobile devices. Currently, Chiefs fans receive a card that has the tickets loaded on it.

LOOKING AHEAD TO 50: The Super Bowl 50 host committee aims to unveil its plans for hosting the game on April 20. We are told the Super Bowl Village will be on the San Francisco waterfront, with the NFL Experience many blocks away in a convention center setting. Commonly, the two are side by side.

The village is set to be the largest one yet.

FOR SALE: NAMING RIGHTS IN MIAMI: The Miami Dolphins have begun shopping naming rights to their soon-to-be renovated stadium. Currently, SunLife Financial has naming rights for the stadium, but that deal ends at the end of the year and it is not being renewed, Dolphins President Tom Garfinkel said. The team is handling the sale internally, with Todd Kline, hired from AEG earlier this year, the point-person.

The $350 million renovation, which includes a canopy over the stadium, is scheduled to be completed next year. Since opening in 1987, the stadium has gone through versions of five different names — and that count, apparently, will soon go to six.

SPOTLIGHT ON BLACKOUTS: When the league announced last week that the infamous TV blackout rule would cease (at least for 2015), the press release divulging the news noted that the league’s broadcast committee had voted in favor of the change, as would be expected. It also announced the finance committee had voted in favor.

Why did the finance committee have to vote? Because a whole mix of stadium economic issues had grown around the blackout rule.

For example, several years ago, the league allowed teams to artificially lower the capacity of their stadiums to meet the rule and have their games air on TV, but if they failed, they had to contribute half their ticket sales to a league pool, and not the normal 33 percent. So, the finance committee had to eliminate that 50 percent rule. It also had to reaffirm rules related to the number of discounted and complementary tickets team could sell.

The league has long argued it needed the blackout rule, which required sellouts for games to be televised locally, as a way to compel clubs to sell tickets. Now, the league will have a real-world laboratory to see if that isn’t the case.

Martha Ford, widow of William Clay Ford, represented the Detroit Lions for the first time.
Photo by: AP IMAGES
JONES
COMINGS AND GOINGS: Owners gave an ovation to Joel Bussert, who is retiring from the league office after four decades. He is senior vice president of player personnel and has been the league’s liaison to the competition committee for the last 30 years. ... Korn Ferry advised the NFL on the hire of the former head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Todd Jones as the league’s new chief disciplinary officer. Jones’ hiring was announced at the meeting. … There hasn’t been a major, leaguewide NFL event in California since the 2009 annual meeting, but there will be three in the next 12 months: the May owners meeting, in San Francisco; Super Bowl 50, in Santa Clara;and next year’s annual meeting, in Laguna Beach. … The Detroit Lions were represented at the meeting by the widow of William Clay Ford, Martha Ford, her first NFL meeting. Ford died last March, shortly before the league’s 2014 meeting. … The league is close to a new statistics and data deal. The incumbent is Stats LLC … Speaking of stats, Zebra Technologies, which tracks player movements during games to create so-called next-generation stats, had a display room adjacent to the main meeting room at the event. Teams are free to use their own tracking providers for practices, so the setup gave Zebra a pretty good inside position to lobby coaches, general managers and team executives for the business.

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