The New York Jets added Willie, Spike and XL to their roster this off-season. New players?
Not exactly. They are three of the characters in what the NFL and the Jets say is the first animated TV series created by an NFL team.
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| The “Gen Jets” cast will share the screen with a new player each week. |
The show will be dubbed "Generation Jets" and is designed to woo the younger set, who may not necessarily be convinced by Fireman Ed's antics to root for Gang Green. The Saturday early afternoon show will air on WCBS in New York and will anchor the team's youth outreach, from merchandise to charity.
"[Our home games] are sold out ... and we want to make sure we're able to tap into that community who can't come and see the games," said Lee Stacey, the Jets' director of marketing. "What better place to start than with the youth marketplace."
While there are no statistics available on what percentage of Jets fans are pre- and mid-teens, only 27.7 percent of Jet faithful are 18-34, according to Scarborough Research, compared with a league average of 31 percent. By contrast, 72.3 percent of the team's fans are 35 or older, compared with a league average of 69 percent.
Each 30-minute episode will focus on a Jets player and a New York landmark, as well as a virtue. The team expects up to 16 shows.
In the first episode, the five animated characters debate whether to wait in line to get on a ferry to go to the Statue of Liberty. They are then magically transported to a movie theater, where a real Chad Pennington instructs them onscreen about the virtue of patience.
Stacey said patience was chosen to highlight Pennington's two-year wait to become the team's starting quarterback.
In fact, the show has qualified as educational under Federal Communications Commission guidelines, so WCBS can count it toward its commitments to air such programming on Saturdays, Stacey said.
The show is produced by B-Train Films, the studio that produces the Jets' coach's show, which airs on WCBS along with its preseason games. B-Train is run by Billy Zagger, who previously worked for the Oakland Raiders and helped that club create its in-house production studio.
The Jets will not receive a rights fee for the show, nor buy the time. Instead, the club will control most of the ad inventory, though WCBS will have several ad spots to sell. The Jets' Stacey said that at best "it is a break-even proposition this year, but we need to make a dent in youth programming."
