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Behind a success story: How the NFL used digital marketing to grow a mainstream sports audience in the UK
Journal of Digital & Social Media Marketing,
9
(2),
127-134
(2021)
Abstract
The US National Football League (NFL) staged its first regular season game in London in 2007. Since then, London has hosted 28 games, featuring 31 of the 32 teams that make up the NFL. These games have provided local relevance in the market, while the season-long marketing approach taken by the NFL has grown the fanbase to the point where the UK can be considered ‘franchise-ready’ for an NFL team to move there at some point. This paper looks at how the NFL has used digital and social media marketing to appeal to this strong fanbase while continuing to bring in new audiences and deliver high levels of growth, with a view to making American football a mainstream sport in the UK.
Keywords: social media marketing; digital marketing; NFL; sport marketing; digital; social media
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Jamie King is the lead across all digital and social media in the NFL’s UK office, working as part of a wider marketing team with the goal of achieving fan growth in the NFL’s key international market. Jamie is a nextgen leader within the sport industry and prior to his present position was an award-winning producer for BBC Radio 5 Live.
Lewis Wiltshire is CEO of Seven League, a digital sports consultancy and agency. Lewis is a former head of sport at Twitter, and a former social media editor at BBC Sport.
