PT on NBC 9/18/97

COMMISSIONER TAGLIABUE INTERVIEW

NBC NIGHTLY NEWS ON FOOTBALL & FEMALES

9/18/97

You have done quite well without worrying about women up until now. Why women and why now?

There’s been an explosion of participation by women in sports in the last 25 years. We all know how dramatic that’s been, how positive it’s been, and it’s intensified in the last decade. So we’re responding to the interest that women have in participating in sport, including football. When women participate they have a different set of interests, a different set of expectations, and a different set of opportunities for us to have them participate and to have them understand the game. We’ve had a tremendous following of women since the early 70s with Monday Night Football in prime time being a big success. It brought pro football to a diverse audience,

including women, that was wider than anyone had dreamed before. But now in the 90s with the explosion in participation, it changes the environment somewhat and gives us a different approach to some of the programs we have.

Do you feel threatened by the interest in the NBA? Are you feeling that somehow the image and marketing of football needs to get jazzed up in some way?

I don’t think so. What we are seeing today is an evolution of the presentation of pro football that really began in the early 60s with network television. Today we have television; we have targeted retailing; we have a lot of means of communication today that enable us to respond to our audience in a different way. But participation by women to me is the big new factor that provides the basis for flag football programs, Punt Pass & Kick programs, other programs that focus on participation in our game in different ways.

Is there also some concern that participation is down among teens playing football. We hear a lot of talk about "soccer moms." Is that part of the impetus behind all of this?

Participation in football is not down. It’s as high or higher than it’s ever been. There’s been some shift in parts of the country where football is played. It used to be considered a cold weather sport. We all have memories of football with the fall leaves in New England or in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio -- some of those places. In the big cities there has been some erosion of participation in football because the structure of the sport has been eroded. Those are factors that we find in our big cities. But in the Southwest, in the Sun Belt, in Florida, participation in football at all levels is up.

What is the goal of this women’s initiative? What do you hope to end up with?

Our goal is to respond to what we see as very strong interest, not just now but for many decades, in our sport. We are responding in a way which is appropriate to women’s interests and expectations today and, as I said, that goal is primarily brought to bear by an explosion in participation in sport generally.

When you say to respond to interest, what does that mean practically? What are you doing?

It means programs that enable them to play football. There are many women playing flag football. They were playing flag football and touch football before we were sponsoring these programs. In many cities you had flag football programs, touch football leagues that included women’s teams, and we’re supporting that. We’re responding to that interest. People like to do things with an icon, and the icon of football is the NFL. So that’s one aspect. Another aspect is understanding the game, which is a by-product of participation. If you participate, you understand. Some people don’t want to participate but they love the game and they want to know more about it. They want to know some of the intricacies. Football is a chess match. It’s a sport where on every play, the defense reacts to the offense and the offense reacts to the defense. So understanding some of those elements is another part of our initiative. I think those are the big parts -- participation, understanding and connecting to the game in many ways. And there are lots of ways you can connect today. You can connect by getting an autograph, but you could do that for most decades in this century. Today you can also connect on the computer, you can connect on the internet, you can connect through targeted television programming. So those are the new initiatives.

Can you tick off for me some of the elements of the women’s initiative?

For me, it’s participation, it’s understanding and it’s connecting. Then there’s specific programs that fit into those categories, including flag football, the use of electronic media, also courses and books and publications. Another aspect would be apparel, which is a way fans have always connected to the game.

Have you found that women respond to the sport differently than men do? Are women interested in different aspects than men are? Are men more interested in statistics? Are women more interested in players? Are there nuances like that?

Men and women both respond to our sport in different ways. I don’t see much difference there. Some men like the contact in the trenches. They like what Paul Maguire on our NBC telecasts focuses on. Other men don’t care about that. They want to see the elegance of a Lynn Swann or Jerry Rice or now a Michael Westbrook or Keyshawn Johnson. So men react very differently to

our game. That’s one of the great things about our game. There are so many different components to it, and women are the same way. Some women are interested in the elegance of the ballet. Other women are interested in the contact, and to them that’s what distinguishes the sport from other sports.

In your market research, have you noticed any gender-based trends?

The key trend that I focus on is participation and everything that grows out of that.

Are you trying to bring different advertisers to the game as part of the goal here, to hope that someone like a Revlon would be more interested in spending Super Bowl dollars than in the past?

Advertisers in sports are really the networks’ function. We might develop some sponsor relationships. We might develop product lines that respond to women’s interest in football just because those companies are creating those kinds of products. But I think the interest is one of equity, one of equality. It’s one of participation and that is not really gender specific.

Isn’t there a limit to how much you can do in terms of getting one to participate in football?

The limit on women participating in football is going to be determined by women. I think that’s true in sport generally. I’ve had a lot of conversations just in the past year with women who are playing tackle football either at the entry level, in college or at the high school level. A number of women, including my own daughter, would like to push the limit of their own participation. If we look back 25 years and try to say what are the limits of women participating in sports, I think we would have a much narrower answer than the broad positive answer we have today.

So what you’re saying is, the women’s initiative is really more about participation than about viewers. It’s more about getting them to play than getting them to watch?

To me, it’s very much about participation. Participants watch. Watchers don’t necessarily participate. I think it’s about participation and understanding and connecting to the sport with a new level of intensity, a new level of connection that creates a fan base and creates a knowing fan and a fan that’s more than a casual fan, which is what every sport likes to strive for.