The NFL’s 3 Secrets To A Virtually Scandal-Proof Reputation

The National Football League and its teams not only survive scandals, they thrivedespite them.

NFL sponsorship grew last year, reportedly up 7.8 percent to $1.2 billion. The NFL’sfemale fan base also grew despite numerous domestic abuse storylines.

Even some of the most scandal-plagued teams – think: the Washington Redskins, NewYork Jets and New England Patriots – rank above average in terms of sponsorshiprevenue, according to the IEG. On top of that, brand engagement and customer loyaltyresearch consultancy Brand Keys recently ranked the Deflategate-plagued Patriots #1 interms of fan loyalty.

“[The NFL has] had their fair share of challenges and controversies and stories thatmight have been devastating to most businesses, but they seem to have come out notjust OK, but actually thriving,” said Vassilis Dalakas, professor of marketing at Cal StateSan Marcos and who supports the Green Bay Packers. “It seems the NFL is able tohandle all of that and overcome it quite well.”

There are many reasons for this, including the sheer number of parties involved, whichmeans, to a degree, blame is spread out among players, teams, the league and the

media.

But it’s also because many of these scandals – Plaxico Burress shooting himself in theleg at a nightclub or Adrian Peterson beating his son, for example – aren’t technicallyfootball-related and fans care about football, said Bianca Lee, founder of White RoseMarketing Solutions and a Pittsburgh Steelers fan who is contemplating switchingallegiance to the Jets. What’s more, football players have a shorter tenure than otherathletes, so their problems often retire when they do, she said.

And, simply put, sports fans are not known for being particularly rational – especiallywhen their favorite team is involved, or a hated rival.

“I’ve done lots of research on sports fandom and one thing consistent is that the moreidentified the fan is – the more diehard they are – the less objective that fan is,” Dalakassaid. “The glasses a diehard fan wears always look at the world in a way that isfavorable to the team they are rooting for and unfavorable to their rivals.”

While experts agree the NFL isn’t scandal proof per se – and a big enough issue couldin fact eventually severely damage its reputation – the league is in an enviable positionwith an extremely forgiving fan base.

So what has the NFL and its individual teams figured out about fan relations thatmarketers should know?

There are three pillars to the NFL’s success.

Pillar 1: Passion

The NFL has a product its fans can’t live without – so much so that it’s really the onlything consumers are still willing to watch on live TV.

“The NFL is one of most successful TV franchises in the history of TV, which meansconsumers still want to watch, which means advertisers still want to pay for it, whichmeans TV stations still want to carry it,” said Bruce Clark, marketing professor at theD’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University, who says he follows thePatriots because he lives in Boston, but wouldn’t describe himself as a fan.

As the saying goes, love is blind.

This means consumers are more than willing to overlook, ignore, downplay, forgive, andexplain away transgressions that might otherwise tarnish their beloved team andpastime.

Dalakas says the closest parallel to a brand with a comparable cult following is Apple,

which clearly boasts its own passionate fan base.

“Thankfully for them, they have not had that kind of controversy, but if they did, fanswould be willing to overlook those transgressions because they love the product somuch,” Dalakas said.

Eden Gillott Bowe, president of crisis and reputation management firm GillottCommunications, who says she is from LA, where they have a reputation for rootingfor whoever is winning, also places Apple in the same “untouchable” category as theNFL.

“The public is so enthralled by cheering their football teams and buying their newiPhones that they’re happy to look the other way despite cheating, domestic abuse, andchild labor,” she said. “Essentially, build up enough of a cult-like following and peoplewill turn a blind eye to a lot of wrongdoing.”

Consumers have a tremendous ability to not notice the things they don’t want to see,Clark agreed.

“If you love football, you really don’t want to notice that football might cause permanentbrain damage to the players. If you love football, you may not want to notice that thegame has tremendous incentives for violence,” Clark said. “So people have atremendous ability to not want to believe bad things about the things they like. Theylove the NFL, so they kind of just don’t pay attention to things that are bad becausethey love it so much.”

This means strong brands that are well-loved can also get away with more than thosewith less passionate consumers, Clark said. He pointed to Amazon, which madeheadlines recently about how it treats its employees.

“But the thing is, people love Amazon, so it’s ‘Don’t show me another bad article aboutAmazon,’” Clark said. “‘If I start to think about it, maybe I wouldn’t be able to shop thereanymore.’ I think they feel the same way about the NFL.”

For his part, Geoff Cook, partner at branding agency Base Design and who says hisblood runs green for the Philadelphia Eagles, pointed to Facebook and its incrediblepopularity that he says “encourages us to overlook the company’s selling of ourpersonal information for profit.”

Pillar 2: Community

The NFL knows there is truly no ‘I’ in team and has come to represent a family in a wayfor its devoted fans and that, Dalakas noted, is so important that even at the end of the

most heartbreaking of seasons when fans say they’re done with a given team, theyalways inevitably come back. Most brands, however, don’t have that luxury.

In other words, while a diehard fan of the Seattle Seahawks might have beenexasperated as a result of product performance last year, he or she is far more likely tostick with the brand in question going into the new season than if, say, a cell phoneprovider or cable company wasn’t meeting his or her expectations, Dalakas said.

Brands, too, should strive to cultivate similar communities in which consumers feel likefans.

“I think with social, there’s a huge, huge opportunity for brands to do that – to make youand me a part of the team,” Clark said. “The way I talk about a sports team with ‘we’ – Ishould feel the same way about my hotel, my airline and my bank. The lesson everybrand can learn is how to make consumers feel they are part of this and that we are partof their identity.”

Fostering a loyal community is the key to a brand’s success, Cook said.

“The NFL has to its credit developed a fanatically devoted set of fans. They thenencourage them to interact with the brand in myriad ways, from attending a game andwatching a game with friends to participating in Fantasy Football or even playing thegame itself,” Cook said. “If today’s brand is increasingly about experience, it can beargued that the NFL is the most successful brand of our time.”

Pillar 3: Tradition

From kickoff in the first game of the season to hoisting the Lombardi trophy at the endof the Super Bowl, the NFL season is rife with tradition. Individual teams, too, have theirown traditions, from the Seahawks’ raising the 12 Flag, to the Packers’ Lambeau Leap,and the Steelers’ Terrible Towels.

Brands, too, should strive to create their own unmissable traditions, Clark said.

“Those kinds of traditions…are very powerful and one of the other things sports canengender is multi-generation brand loyalty,” Clark said. “If you grew up in a family andyour parents are Packers fans, in all likelihood, you are, too, and you think of familyconnections and the things you grew up with and the things you shared.”

This means brands that create their own traditions have a comparable opportunity toinspire loyalty for generations.

Take, for example, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. This is an example of a brand

that has created a tradition consumers watch each year, Clark said. Amazon has alsocreated buzz around Cyber Monday and Prime Day as recurring dates to buy presentsand/or get deals, he added.

Like the NFL season, these branded traditions are also reliable, which yield even morecultural engagement opportunities on a predictable schedule.

In addition, Apple’s much-buzzed-out iPhone announcements have, in recent years,come in the first week of September, which could be its own potential brand tradition inthe making, Clark said.

There’s also a certain spectacle in individual games, as well as throughout the course ofthe season. Again, brands, like the NFL, should strive to create spectacles thatconsumers want to be a part of, Clark said.

“Look at Apple Stores. They are experiences. They are cathedrals of technology,” Clarksaid. “It’s a spectacle.”