The NFL Signs Deal with Snapchat

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Eyeing the next Big Thing in media, the National Football League has signed a content partnership deal with Snapchat.

As part of the deal, Snapchat will broadcast a montage of images and videos from users at and around football games, game footage and behind the scenes video on its Live Stories portal. The broadcasts will be done weekly throughout the season, before and during games, and all 32 NFL teams are expected to be featured at least once.

The partnership is part of an effort by the NFL to engage and grow its younger audience. NFL Live Stories will feature fan reactions to on-field play, as well as celebrations and tailgating activities in stadium parking lots and stands.

“There are all kinds of different things happening around the game, but only a small slice of that will make it into a broadcast,” said Blake Stuchin, the NFL’s director of digital media business development. “The idea was to say, ‘How do we tell the story what it is like being at an NFL game from many different perspectives?’”

The NFL is enormously popular on television – the 2014 regular season reached 202 million viewers, representing 68 percent of potential viewers in the U.S., according to Nielson – but the league thinks using Snapchat could grow its television audience even further and spur more people to buy game tickets.

“It’s an attractive demographic group, that we hope is the future of our NFL fan base,” said Stuchin. “They’ve got more than 100 million daily active users. … We want to be where our fans are and where they are spending their time.”

Snapchat’s international audience and female-leaning user base are also particularly interesting, he said.

The NFL thinks Snapchat advertising revenue may also be a significant business for it down the road, said Stuchin. As part of the Snapchat partnership, the NFL will be selling advertisements against its Live Story content. Three 10-second advertising spots are slotted for each Live Story broadcast. Stuchin declined to say what the NFL’s advertising sales split with Snapchat is.

Representatives of Snapchat did not respond to a request for comment.

Technology reporter Garrett Reim can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @garrettreim for the latest in L.A. tech news.

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