Brendan Cole’s Post

What a gift from the football gods for NBCUniversal and #SundayNightFootball as it appears #TaylorSwift is making plans to attend this weekend's Chiefs/Jets game, which would be her second straight week attending an NFL game in person in support of her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs Tight End #TravisKelce. I love the story, two talented individuals at the height of their professions, both with a healthy understanding of the power of their platforms, forming a romance mega-alliance. I wish the kids the best and hope there's never any #BadBlood (sorry) between them, but let's look at it for a moment from a #SportsPartnerships lens, shall we? The best partnerships work when mutual value is created. What has this romance brought about for the parties involved, simply from a business perspective? For Taylor: She's *the* headline in the NFL discourse, America's largest weekly live mass audience, for two weeks in a row (at least), generating more free advertising/media value for herself than likely any other brand paid for this week, all during a break in the action of her world-dominating #Eras tour. Last weekend's game on Fox Corporation drew 24.3 million viewers, biggest NFL audience of the week. This doesn't even factor in the countless stories across every imaginable media outlet that's been covering the story since last weekend. Not bad. For Travis? According to the Front Office Sports story I link below, Travis enjoyed a 400% increase in his jersey sales on Fanatics week over week, 383K new Instagram followers, and the podcast he and his brother Jason Kelce do each week is #1 on Apple. Not bad! So whether this #LoveStory is music to your ears or not, you likely won't be able to #ShakeItOff while watching games this weekend. #DontBlameMe for falling prey to the irresistible Taylor puns or definitely not the producers at #SundayNightFootball who will certainly take the opportunity to plaster T Swift all over your screen Sunday night every chance they can. Just lean into it and enjoy the brilliance of two audience engagement #Masterminds doing what they do best.

🏈 Super Bowl - By the Numbers 📊 With Super Bowl LVIII in the books and the Patrick Mahomes-lead Kansas City Chiefs winning their third Vince Lombardi trophy, let's take a moment to reflect on some of the staggering figures behind America's favorite sporting event: • 115 Million Viewers: Tuned in, making it a monumental moment in television history. • $7,000 Get-In Ticket Price: Ensuring only the most dedicated fans secure a seat. • 4 hours and 20 minutes: The telecast of ads... er... football, stretched over 4 hours, providing fans plenty of time to gamble, eat, drink and be merry • $17 Million Halftime Show: A spectacle in itself, showcasing Usher, Alicia Keys, Lil Jon, Ludacris, Jermaine Durpis and H.E.R. • $7 Million 30-Second Commercials: Advertisers vying for viewers' attention during breaks. • $600 Million in Ad Revenue for CBS: A testament to the event's unmatched popularity. • 1,000+ Private Jets and $2.5 Million Suites: Adding a touch of luxury to the game, reflecting the grandeur of the occasion. • $3,700/night rooms at Wynn: If you were looking for luxury, a basic room would have set you back that staggering amount, showcasing the premium experience associated with the Super Bowl. And, finally for the Swifties in the crowd: • 12: The number of Taylor Swift's appearances. Over those 12 times, she captivated audiences for a total of 53 seconds. From the adrenaline-pumping game to the star-studded halftime show, every aspect of this year's Las Vegas-held Super Bowl was larger than life. Did any of these numbers surprise you? Ready to tackle your financial goals with the same gusto? Let's connect over a virtual coffee and draft a winning strategy! ☕️🏆 #SuperBowl #FinancialGoals #VirtualCoffeeChat #Lawyers #WealthyLawyer #LamontWealthStrategies

🏈 What a Game! From Super Bowl Showdowns to March Madness Dreams 🏀 Wow, just when you thought your heart had enough excitement for one year, the Chiefs and 49ers decide to play tug-of-war with our emotions in an OT thriller at the Super Bowl! 🎉 A classic showdown that had us all on the edge of our seats, proving once again that in sports, the script is always unscripted! Now, as the confetti settles in Vegas, we can't help but turn our eager eyes towards the upcoming "March Madness". Because why stop at football when you can have the thrill of college basketball too? 🏀➡️🏈 At RmediaAds, we're all about capturing these electrifying moments and transforming them into winning strategies. We don't just watch the games; we live them, breathe them, and sometimes, on a good day, predict them (don't hold us to that). So, here's to finding those who share our passion for the game and the game behind the game. If you love sports betting and casino campaigns as much as we loved that OT touchdown, let's make magic happen. And by magic, we mean meticulously crafted ad campaigns that hit harder than a linebacker! Do you have premium traffic? Got premium offers? Let's make magic happen together! 🌟 #SuperBowl #MarchMadness #RmediaAds

Sports media is transforming before our very eyes. Last week saw the first round of the NFL draft, and with it, Pat McAfee's 5th Annual Draft Spectacular live streamed on YouTube. Pat drew 2.2 million viewers to his show, peaking at 322k concurrent viewers. The official NFL YouTube stream drew 888k viewers, peaking at around 30k concurrent (h/t Reed Duchscher for the stats) The comment sentiment gives you an insight into then reasons why: - “This was the most entertaining draft coverage I've ever seen in my 30+ years of religiously watching the NFL draft” - “Usually the NFL draft coverage is like watching paint dry til your team picks, but I was absolutely fascinated by every minute of this broadcast” - “This show was soooooooo much better than the actual draft!” Pat and the team craft an experience that is truly optimised for social and engagement. And there is clearly a huge audience who value a product totally different from what they can watch on TV. Personalised, dynamic, fun. The official NFL was something you could see on TV. It looked like an afterthought. With an average of 12m viewers on TV, it’s clear this still dominates eyeballs for the draft, but alternative sister live programming will eat away at this market share over the next 5 years. And this movement will affect EVERY SINGLE SPORT. Rights-holders and broadcasters will do well to try and ensure these are associated products, vs produced independently. Pay attention. Don’t get left behind #sportbiz #sportsindustry #fanengagement

This week's edition of The Anchor features an interesting read on Vegas 5.0 and Super Bowl LVIII. The article highlights the repositioning of Vegas and Temu's Offense. Notably, the audience mix changed significantly, with a high-income, elite crowd dominating the scene in 2024. The average household income of the crowd increased by 18% year-over-year, and the Power Elite segment represented 17% of total visitors, up from 11% in 2023. Check out the article for more insights on this fascinating topic. #TheAnchor #Vegas5.0 #SuperBowlLVIII #BusinessNews

The Peacock Exclusive @AFC Wild Card Game makes history as the largest live-streamed event in the U.S., reaching 27.6 million viewers. Dolphins-Chiefs becomes the most-streamed U.S. event ever, averaging 23 million viewers. Peacock hits its highest-ever usage with 16.3 million concurrent devices. Browns-Texans is NBC's most-watched Saturday NFL Wild Card Game since 2014, with 29 million viewers. The event leads to the largest single-day U.S. internet usage, consuming 30% of internet traffic. https://lnkd.in/epAST9g8

The Super Bowl had 3 of the most talked about individuals/topics of 2024 all in one space... 1. Usher aka Mr. Steal Everyone's Girl during his Vegas residency. 2. Taylor Swift and her love story. (He didn't propose btw) 3. Beyonce and the riddle of "what is act ii?" (It is a country album) A game was played but there was definitely a reason you saw multiple frames of Taylor across your screen. Not that the NFL needs hype but it definitely helps to increase the cost of a Super Bowl ad and bring in new eyeballs! As a marketing tactic, let this serve as a lesson to not only promote your brand but use the trending topics and news to your advantage. Your product is great but is there a way to use a cowboy hat in the next 72 hours to trend alongside #texasholdem? Always keep your ear on the pulse of what is happening in current events to keep your brand in the forefront! Sincerely, Socially Social #Superbowl #marketingstrategies

From the always enjoyable Jason Gay: “These companies need to grow, and it makes sense that they’d explore weaponizing the one thing on television everyone still watches: the NFL. “Peacock announced 23 million people watched the game, a figure Peacock said includes those local audiences in K.C. and Miami. Peacock also claimed the game drove internet usage to a ‘single day U.S. record,’ a major claim, if it includes the afternoon two llamas escaped in Arizona and BuzzFeed asked everyone: What color is this dress? “This is our new reality.” Our reality: We missed watching it via this imperfect platform, but we wouldn’t say we missed it. Not to ruffle any feathers but we don’t pay for Peacock. It seems to be incidental on our media radar. There is enough “Law & Order” episodes free elsewhere. We Amazon Prime it, reluctantly, for other selfish reasons, but rarely dial into a Thursday night NFL - even to comisserate with Al Michaels’ angst. We already aren’t on board with Thursday night football on any front. Except Thanksgiving. Our end around: We DVR’d this Chiefs-Fins game as we noticed it re-aired on NFL Network about an hour after it ended. We could wait it out. We watched a little late Saturday. We knew the result anyway from checking the ESPN app. We got the gist of it. We slept OK. Our impulse is less impulsive days. We’ve learned so from jumping on other streaming channels for an event and eventually disconnecting that chasing entertainment. We are no-go on FOMO. The NFL perhaps needed this experiment at this moment in time to help it, and other sports, decide if it’s worth taking some of its sponsored-supported inventory to another income resource at the viewer’s expense. It’s a business. Bottom line. It’s why MLB has cherry picked games on a Friday night to go to Apple TV. Orange you glad you didn’t commit to that fruit salad yet? An NFL playoff game is kind of a bully move. And a bit ballsy. Like a 17-game season. We’re indifferent at this juncture. It’s just where sports - and it’s influential gambling partners - are steering this ATM into the next proverbial iceberg in search of getting a small group of team owners more status and power. And making it easier to place impulsive bets on when Patrick Mahomes’ helmet will break apart in the evening chill. Bully for them. (Checking today’s Bills-Steelers game, it says Buffalo -10. Is that the temp forecast at kickoff or some cryptic insight that the Dollar Bills are a betting favorite?) All and all, we’re OK they didn’t pick the Rams-Lions game as the lab rat for this streaming brain-freeze playoff experiment. Or we might have a whole other impulsive dissection on Monday AM with scalpels flying and aortas severed. The NFL didn’t completely sell itself to special interests this time. But it is moving the chains and inching forward to a freeze-out moment — pleasing the haves over the have-nots, and forcing you to decide which side you’ve invested in. For now, we’re nots.

#SaturdayMorningHustle on Sunday too! In sports, it's good to focus on your competition and to have a game plan for beating them. It's also a lot of fun to add some good-natured animosity, rivalry and trash-talk between players and fans. But in business, that's all a waste of time and a diversion from what you should be focused on to be successful: your strengths/weaknesses, market position and value proposition to attract, convert and retain the best possible audience for how you do business and NOT beating your competition or winning a single sale. You don't have to be a sports fan to get value from this conversation. Give the episode a listen, then let's talk about it. http://bit.ly/ListenToSMH

The Jacksonville Jaguars/Atlanta Falcons game played at London's Wembley Stadium this past weekend was unlike any I've ever seen before. That's because I watched the "Toy Story Funday Football" simulcast on Disney+ which imagined the game Pixar-style live from "Andy's Room." Chips placed in the pads of all the athletes in the game rendered them as animations in real-time as though the action was all captured in the Toy Story universe. If it sounds kind of insane, it was. It was not perfect, but a commendable risk, incredible effort, and from my perspective, a big success. My whole family was mesmerized by it. I had company on the couch watching NFL Football which is not a common occurrence in our household. How can #FundayFootball be enhanced? By taking the #FanEngagement and #storytelling to the next level, and delighting the audience they are capturing even more in hopes to convert them to fans of the National Football League (NFL) product in all its forms. Pixar Animation Studios and The Walt Disney Company included some great narrative elements including a #DukeCaboom halftime show which was possibly the highlight of the broadcast, yet there was further they could have taken it. We got to see all the #ToyStory faves: #Woody, #Buzz, #SlinkyDog, even arch nemesis #Zurg got in on the action. But while clips interspersed within the action teased deeper involvement from the characters, there was an opportunity to better weave a standalone narrative that played alongside the game to keep the younger set (and story nerds like me) engaged on another level. Given the master storytellers involved in this project, you can expect that in the future. From an engagement perspective, you can also count on these simulcasts better connecting to and even monetizing the core audiences participating: on screen calls-to-action and purchase offers, exclusive peeks at co-branded content, and much more. The future has not fully arrived, but watching the #FundayFootball broadcast was a strong indicator that it will be here soon.