A NFL estabeleceu uma parceria de 2 anos com o TikTok para tentar alcançar um público mais jovem

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The NFL and TikTok have struck a 2-year deal wherein the Gen Z favorite will assist the league with content creation and putting out “hashtag challenges” that the platform will promote, per CNBC. As part of the deal, the NFL has launched its own TikTok account, where it will post behind-the-scenes content, highlights, memes, and more.

The TikTok partnership comes as the NFL has been taking broad steps to try and bring in younger viewers given its fan drop-off among those under 50. TikTok was the third most-downloaded app in the US during Q1 2019, boasts 500 million monthly active users, and in particular, it’s ascended among younger social media users: 41% of its users are between ages 16 and 24, per GlobalWebIndex.

In contrast, the NFL’s user base is far older — the average US NFL viewer is 50 years old, per Magna estimates — and the league has been deploying various strategies across platforms popular among younger generations to change that.

For isntance, in April, it struck a partnership with Instagram to promote the NFL draft: When each player was selected to the draft, a photo was taken of him wearing his “New Era Draft Day” hat, and subsequently uploaded to Instagram with a shopping link. The league has also increasingly experimented with distribution via social platforms and tech companies, like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, which could eventually help it better reach younger users.

Sports-focused accounts on social platforms have a proven track record of drivingstrong engagement, and the NFL is likely hoping TikTok offers the same potential.While it’s unclear just how many TikTok users are fans of traditional sports, Instagram says that one-third of its global users — about 330 million users — follows a sports account, with about 80% of those accounts being athletes. 

The league is likely betting that TikTok users have a similar level of general interest in sports, and that it can leverage that to excite new fans and reengage existing or lapsed ones. For his part, Blake Stuchin, the NFL’s VP of digital media business development, highlighted TikTok as a “natural extension” of the media strategy it has been employing across social, as it allows the league to interact with a “fast-growing global audience of NFL fans and future fans.”

And beyond social, the NFL has been pushing its branding strategy outside the box, expanding to other forms of new media like video games and esports. The leagueworked with Fortnite in November — which now counts 250 million global players, the vastmajority of whom are under 24 — to develop Super Bowl-themed skins for in-game avatars. The NFL itself additionally runs professional Madden Leagues for gaming and football enthusiasts to generate esports engagement. Esports is wildly popular, and still growing, and the average viewer comes in at fully half of the NFL’s traditional audience at 25 years old.

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