Commissioner Tagliabue Interview

ABC World News Tonight on Youth Marketing

September 18, 1997

ABC: Can you talk about the goals of the NFL’s more aggressive marketing campaign over the past two years. The overall philosophy of it. What does it hope to accomplish?

PT: What we are doing is evolving strategies that began in the early ‘60s when the NFL took pro sports to network television and then brought NFL Properties and NFL Films in to reinforce the outreach to a large audience, kids included.

ABC: You see this as sort of the latest evolution of a long-standing strategy as opposed to a sharp departure?

PT: Exactly. It is very much evolutionary. Every decade brings new approaches, new tactics, new audiences and new groups of kids that are interested in sport.

ABC: What are some of the new challenges that the ‘90s have brought in this regard?

PT: A proliferation of television, obviously. More broadcast channels, more cable channels, so you have a sort of niche programming out there. Computers, obviously, are part of it; leisure time has grown. You also have more two parents out of the household working. So in some areas where the structures of sport are falling away and kids fall away from sports we are coming back into it. C.I.T.Y. Football gives incentives and a structure for kids to be back in sports where things may be happening in the community and they fall away from sports.

ABC: So youth is one explicit target of the recent campaign?

PT: Pro sports have always focused on kids as young athletes and as young fans. This is just an evolution of policies that the NFL started in the ‘60s, then continued in the ‘70s and the ‘80s.

ABC: Are there things that you are doing to reach youth, to bring them into the league, that you have never done before? Something that you think is a novel idea?

PT: There are some new tactics. There are some new programs. But again, it is the evolution of things like Punt, Pass & Kick. PP & K was synonomous with kids and sports for a couple of decades. So what we are doing today is bringing that up to date in today’s environment.

ABC: I read somewhere the number of youths in NFL-sanctioned sports has quadrupled in recent years from 400,000 to 1.6 million. That must reflect a huge investment in resources on your part. What is the thinking on that?

PT: I don’t know if 400,000 to 1.6 million are the numbers, but we are a nation that is approaching 300 million people so numbers in the ‘90s are going to look bigger than numbers in the ‘60s just because we have grown as a country and there are more kids out there. But certainly we are reaching out to kids. We are in an era of targeted television and targeted communications in a lot of areas. We are in an era of targeted retailing and there has been a dramatic change in retailing in terms of mega-stores and things such as that. What we have evolved is a program for the ‘90s that reflects the realities of modern communication.

ABC: How do you rank youth with respect to the demographics of your viewership, or do you?

PT: I don’t think you rank them. What the league has tried to do since the ‘60s and has done so successfully is be popular across the entire spectrum of fans – the seniors as well as the kids, the people in their mid-30s as well as people in their mid-50s, men, women, children, parents, grandparents. That is a big part of sports, the tradition, passing the interest of the sport from generation to generation. That happens in college football and that happens with the NFL teams.

ABC: What about women in particular? Are there new ways in which the NFL has identified the importance of women?

PT: Women have been a big part of the NFL’s audience for decades. Monday Night Football was the first pro sports hit in prime time. So that brought this sport – NFL football - to women in a way that no other sport had ever accomplished. What we are doing today is evolving some of those approaches through television, retailing and participation to deal with the realities of the ‘90s.

ABC: Is there an aspect to your strategy that responds to the perception of increased competition from other professional sports marketers?

PT: We have always known that we’re just one part of a very large entertainment pool, if you will. People can go to sporting events, they can go to the movies, they can rent a video. So the intense competition in entertainment has always been a part of it. I would say, yes, part of it is the competitive environment but part of it is just evolutionary.

ABC: On viewing numbers, there really is still no comparison between the NFL and other professional sports leagues, so there doesn’t seem to be a question at this point of fans migrating from football to other sports. Is this pro-active on your part or reactive to an increasingly competitive environment?

PT: The NFL on television and with fans generally is getting a bigger and bigger share of the audience. That is true not just as to other sports but other types of television programming. MNF was very popular but it used to be in the top 20 and now it is in the top five. So we get stronger and stronger relative to other television programming. We continue to get be very strong and have a wide lead over the other sports in terms of the total audience both in terms of popularity and television ratings.

ABC: Could you tell me what you think "Feel the Power" means as the league’s slogan?

PT: Most people think "Feel the Power" is the passion. Football is America’s passion. College football for college football fans is their passion. It’s their alma mater’s passion. NFL teams have that same type of intensity. NFL football was the first professional sport to have that type of passion and connection with the fans. The fact that we play eight home games -- a limited number of games -- creates a happening were that passion comes to a peak. You can see it in stadiums like the new Jack Kent Cooke Stadium, which is carrying over the passion of the Redskins’ fans which was exhibited at RFK Stadium.

ABC: Operationally, are there ways in which the NFL has re-structured itself in terms of marketing? Are you doing more qualitative or quantitative research on different demographics in the viewing market?

PT: When you are in an era of targeted communication, it helps to know who your audiences are and how one segment of the audience compares to another. Another big part of it is participation. We have all heard the term "couch potato," but everybody wants to participate in sports, not just be a fan. So with kids, with women, with all points on the spectrum, we are trying to make it easy for people to play football. That is the reason for some of the flag football programs, for the expansion of Punt, Pass & Kick. It’s participation, not just watching and being a "couch potato."

ABC: There is a perception that the NFL has had this virtual monopoly over the sports audience for a long time and that only recently have you begun to feel that there is a need to be aggressively out there, outreaching and understanding and communicating better with viewers. Are we now in a "leaving no stones unturned" era of NFL marketing?"

PT: The NFL has always had a "no stones unturned" approach since the ‘60s. That was the beauty of network television and the first network contracts that Pete Rozelle did. It is the beauty of sports cable networks today. We can continue the outreach that began in the early ’60s. In that period of time the number of teams basically tripled with the creation of the American Football League and then the merger of the two leagues. What you are seeing today is a continuation of that.

ABC: Does it really matter if the NFL really has a presence in the electronic computer gaming industry or has figurines and that part of the toy market? Do you think these things actually translate into the growth of young viewers?

PT: I don’t know whether it translates into the growth of young viewers, but it enables people to connect with their heroes. It enables people to have fun and participate in their sport in a lot of different ways.

ABC: Is participation an explicit goal in the marketing strategy across demographics?

PT: That has been an explicit goal for more than 30 years. That is the premise of PP&K. What we see today is the same premise -- participation for men, women, boys, girls, people at all levels, tackle, touch and other forms of football which are a combination of tackle and touch.