SBJ Football: NFL Draft Delivers Unique Experience

Last night, the NFL Draft was the first time in seven weeks I could text my friends and know they were doing the same thing I was. I miss that more than anything about live sports.

VIRTUAL NFL DRAFT GAVE FRESH, INTIMATE VIEW OF THOSE INVOLVED

• When I woke up today, I wanted to dish on the NFL Draft. So I called SBJ's John Ourand and my old friend Andy Amrine, a certified draft fanatic, to do a podcast. Our consensus: The all-virtual draft couldn’t deliver the same pomp and emotion that comes from an event where everyone’s in the same place. But the virtual event gave us a fresh and more intimate view of the personalities involved in the process. Aside from the actual picks on the board, the best part of the night was our look inside the private homes of prospects, coaches and execs. It certainly dominated Twitter. "These were unique shots I’ve never seen before,” Ourand said. Amrine, who’s a big follower of the Browns and Ohio State, added: “It was a more intimate feel. It felt like you could be a part of it.”
  
  
• In fact, we were all left wanting more. The ESPN broadcast went 25 picks between live interviews with any draftee -- from Joe Burrow to Jordan Love. I was under the impression there would be lots of back-and-forth between the studio and the players, or even the coaches and GMs (there were a few more interviews on ABC’s version of the telecast). An ESPN spokesperson said the network kept the interviews to a minimum because it was encroaching on the next team’s time in the spotlight, not because of any technical problems.
  
  
• One thing Ourand and Amrine both agreed didn’t work: The select fans from each team who had a direct video link to Roger Goodell’s announcements. It was an attempt to bring some live crowd noise to the selection announcements, which I appreciated. But it was uneven from team to team, and their cheering didn’t come off as particularly authentic.
  
  
• Let’s take a step back and give ESPN and the NFL due credit: The draft wasn’t that different -- players got picked and analysts talked about it, like always. Even though there were unprecedented technical challenges and so many things that could go wrong. “Really, I thought they did a great job of keeping it the same, as weird as that is with the circumstances,” said Amrine, who’s pretty much never missed a pick during the first round since I met him in elementary school.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT SUBDUED DURING REMOTE DRAFT

• Players were shipped a big package of NFL sponsor product before the draft, so I wouldn’t have been shocked to see Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Mars candy and the tech products all over the place. But product placement was subdued, only seen here and there. Bose was the most consistent presence -- most of the draftees seemed to be wearing their headphones at some point, and they had a sound bar visible in Roger Goodell’s basement. The surprise hit was Old Spice, which became an instant social trend when draftee Henry Ruggs III appeared in a branded bath robe.
  
  
• Also, a slight majority of the commercials did not address the pandemic. Genesco Sports Enterprises CEO John Tatum said that’s the smart play unless there’s a clear nexus between your pitch and the crisis. “If there’s a product or a brand that can have an authentic message that connects back to the current situation with the pandemic, then I think it’s smart for them to take that path,” Tatum said, noting the risk of looking like you’re forcing it or taking advantage of the situation. Burger King emphasized its remote ordering app; Microsoft Teams’ only spot emphasized its role in delivering tele-medicine.
  
  
• If there was less commercialization than you might expect, Tatum said, it was probably because most of the energy went into ensuring the draft simply worked. “There was such a concern about communications and things working well, that … people were less focused on the staging of the product placement and things like that,” he said. The big ambush storyline was in Sean Payton’s home, where he had Coca-Cola and Hershey snacks in front of him (Pepsi and Mars are league sponsors).
  
  
• Tatum said he didn’t see an overwhelming “winner” among brands last night, possibly because the lack of a large gathering made it hard for one message to take over. But he singled out Bud Light Seltzer, a Genesco client, as one that stood out with its #boothecommish social campaign and its 146 Draft Tips spot with 49ers TE George Kittle.

WHAT WORKED DURING THE DRAFT, AND WHAT DIDN'T

• Nitpicking is a sign that the important stuff went well, so the NFL and ESPN/ABC should be quite pleased. Before the draft, ESPN's Seth Markman spoke about how this would be the most difficult production of his career. NBC’s Fred Gaudelli was so impressed with last night's telecast that he tweeted it was “a tremendous achievement of the highest order.” Most importantly, technology didn’t impede the critically important football business even once.
  
  
• Still, there were some hiccups that ESPN and the NFL should work on before Rounds 2 and 3 tonight. A persistent problem was the timing of cues. There were lots of long lag times between speakers on the ESPN/NFL Network telecast, which I watched for the duration. Also, the pick announcements didn’t always line up with the video coming from prospects' homes, so it wasn’t clear if we were seeing real-time reactions. The overhead shots of the empty ESPN campus in Bristol didn’t make much sense to me; they should have stuck with the Vegas Strip.
  
  
• Even though I liked a lot of Roger Goodell’s time on camera, the most memorable flubs last night came in the commissioner’s basement. He gave the wrong year when announcing the Raiders would get to host the 2022 draft, and briefly spoke over Fletcher Rollinson, the 12-year-old cancer survivor who was introducing the Browns’ pick on behalf of St. Jude Children’s Hospital. But Goodell also gets credit for leaning into the boos, and for talking to the fans of each team with direct video links. I also liked the tour he gave of his home yesterday on Twitterbefore the draft.
  
  
• I only saw the Draft-A-Thon on NFL.com before the Draft, but I loved the brief time I did see. In about 10 minutes, Tom Brady made me legitimately laugh out loud twice, and Rich Eisenholding court with Kevin Love, Russell Wilson and others was high comedy. I’m told that continued throughout the night.

DRAFT DRAWS WIDE RANGE OF ADVERTISERS

• A vast range of advertisers joined the telecasts, and I was pleasantly surprised to see so many of them stick with a traditional sales or brand message. By my count, slightly under half specifically referenced the pandemic. It was refreshing to simply be a marketing target again.
  
  

Download the NFL Draft advertisers

ATHLETES FIRST LEADS AGENCIES IN FIRST-ROUND PICKS

• Athletes First led all agencies with eight players taken in the first round of the NFL Draft, ending CAA's four-year run as first-round leader, SBD's Andrew Levin & Josh Liberatore report. The agency's night was highlighted by No. 6 pick Justin Herbert (Chargers) and No. 8 pick Isaiah Simmons (Cardinals). CAA totaled the second-most players with six, including No. 1 overall pick Joe Burrow (Bengals).
  
  
• Klutch Sports Group -- which acquired Damarius Bilbo's Revolution Sports in January -- represented two top-five picks: Chase Young (Redskins) and Jeff Okudah (Lions). Roc Nation Sports also had two players in the top 10. There were 15 different agencies to represent players picked in the first round, down from 17 last year. Six agencies represented multiple players.

Download the NFL Draft Agency Chart

SPEED READS

• ESPN’s Mike Golic Jr. gave a “hat tip” to last week’s coverage of the WNBA Draft for providing a runway for a relatively smooth round one of the NFL Draft last night. On the “ESPN Daily” podcast, Golic Jr. said, “I looked at that as a production done largely by our folks and I said, ‘Alright. Everyone involved in that process -- from the TV broadcast side to the teams making picks to the commissioner -- all seemed to operate pretty smoothly after some practice in that spot. We heard very often about how much time the NFL spent practicing this week. It seemed to pay off.”
  
  
• Put a check in the Panthers' win column after the team got James Taylor to craft a song for the NFL Draft last night. SBD's Josh Carpenter talked to the team about how it landed the music legend.

• Navy AD Chet Gladchuk told the Annapolis Capital Gazette that he "has been in communication with government officials in Ireland" and was told the country's ban on large gatherings through the end of August "does not apply to sporting events at this time." Navy is set to play Notre Dame in Dublin on Aug. 29. 
  
  

• The Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay had fun with Jerry Jones’ superyacht setup last night: “We are supposedly amid a new dawn of humility, where we are flattening the curve, noting the chasm-like inequalities of the human existence and will no longer be entranced by flamboyant displays of wealth. And yet ... I loved Jerry quarantining aboard the JerryYacht. Is that OK to admit? I don’t want Jerry bunkered in the garage, worried about the Wi-Fi. I want Jerry to be Jerry.”

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Something on the football beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (bfischer@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).