At this year\u2019s NFL draft, some of the league\u2019s top prospects were asked a few questions they weren\u2019t used to.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is a skort?\u201d an interviewer asked. Travis Hunter made his best guess.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is primer?\u201d she continued. Shemar Stewart wasn\u2019t totally sure.<\/p>\n
The questions were part of a social media video asking players about women\u2019s products. It was created by Betches, a media company that caters to a young female audience, and garnered 1.5 million views on Instagram. While it might not be traditional NFL content, it\u2019s resonating and building on the league\u2019s push to attract young women through partnerships with women-centered media outlets.<\/p>\n
The league partnered with Betches last December, and finalized a partnership with The Gist, a female-fan focused sports site and newsletter, in August. The NFL has long seen women as key to their efforts to broaden the league\u2019s appeal, a push that gained extra momentum after Taylor Swift began her highly-publicized relationship with now-fianc\u00e9 Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we want to connect with this audience, authentic, real storytelling is absolutely key,\u201d said Marissa Solis, the senior vice president of global brand and consumer marketing at the NFL. \u201cSo rather than doing targeted ads that really don\u2019t connect \u2026 you give access to (Betches and The Gist) but they tell the story in their own point of view, being there, front and center. And I think that connection is something paid advertising can\u2019t do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both outlets receive access to NFL tentpole events \u2014 the Super Bowl, the draft and the combine, to name a few \u2014 to create articles and content for their platforms, alongside additional league content. Betches, for example, kicked off a tailgate tour series as part of its partnership, and The Gist debuted a free game for predicting each week\u2019s winners.<\/p>\n
The partnerships are all in pursuit of growing and engaging the league\u2019s large female fanbase, a demographic that has often been underestimated or overlooked. A September poll by Ipsos found that 41% of American women were NFL fans.<\/p>\n
That translates into the potential for big business, leading the NFL to turn to outlets that already have deep connections with women.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe center women in everything that we do. It\u2019s not an afterthought, it\u2019s not like you are adding the W to the end of ESPN,\u201d said Jacie deHoop, who co-founded The Gist with Ellen Hyslop and Roslyn McLarty in 2017. \u201cMore data and research on women is showing what an underserved and huge audience and fan base this is.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to traditional game reports and on-the-field breakdowns, a large part of the strategy around appealing to women \u2014 and to a new generation of NFL fans more broadly \u2014 is human-centric content. Through an approach aptly dubbed \u201chelmets off\u201d by the NFL, the league and their partners are focusing on content about the players themselves, looking to forge stronger connections by using more personal storytelling.<\/p>\n
According to Solis, that approach has \u201creally opened up the aperture of emotional and human-centric storytelling that really attracts our female fans\u201d \u2013 and it\u2019s an area where Betches and The Gist can help fill in.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a clear white space, and we know how to speak to the casual fan. They care about culture, they care about the person behind these players, and we speak that relatable, authentic tone,\u201d said Randi Windt, the senior vice president for revenue partnerships at Betches.<\/p>\n
\u201cRelating to someone will have them lean in, versus pushing a marketing narrative that you think perhaps would get someone to tune in on a Sunday,\u201d Windt continued. The NFL \u201cis not looking just for that tune in \u2026 We\u2019re really collaborating on building fandom over time.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nfl<\/a><\/p>\n ___<\/p>\n The Associated Press\u2019 women in the workforce and state government coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP\u2019s standards<\/a> for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n Alyce Brown, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At this year\u2019s NFL draft, some of the league\u2019s top prospects were asked a few questions they weren\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-261343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}