How the NFL seeded another cultural moment 🌱🏈👀
Deep dive on Schedule Release Day + Bennydrama scores with Overcompensating + The Sabbatical begins!
Megan on the NFL’s play for social media buzz 🏈📺😄
I’m not a football fan. But I am a pop-culture obsessive. So when the NFL makes itself culturally relevant off the field, I pay attention. One way they’ve managed to grab my attention in recent years–besides getting Taylor Swift to attend games–are the NFL schedule release videos.
The NFL has managed to successfully leverage social media, and specifically YouTube, to eventize an otherwise straightforward information drop and turn it into an opportunity for organic feeling, fandom and engagement. Not an easy feat!
On Schedule Release Day, each team simultaneously releases an official video sharing their upcoming season’s schedule in a creative way. Coming a few weeks after the draft, these videos often feature star players, notable newbies, and celebrity cameos. In my opinion, the best part about Schedule Release Day is that it gives us a window into the personality of each team's social media strategy.
Not only did I watch every single video so you don’t have to, I created a detailed spreadsheet to analyze how the videos compare to one another. Our paid subscribers can click here for free access to the raw spreadsheet, everyone else read on for the highlights!
THE BIG SHIFT: TIKTOK FIRST → YOUTUBE FIRST
Compared to last year (because yes, I also went down this rabbit hole last year) it felt like Schedule Release Day was more in the hands of the capital b Brand. While last year, teams really leaned into TikTok with trending audios and jokes, this year the action was focused on YouTube and the content was then repurposed for TikTok. That, combined with the overall tonality of the videos (slightly “cheugier” than last year), leads me to conclude that–with last year being such a success and “Schedule Release Day” becoming A Thing–this output was reprioritized from something the junior (Gen Z) employees could lead to something that had more attention from the bosses (i.e. red tape, approval layers, but also budget 🤑). Last year was much more boundary pushing, experimental, and IYKYK while this year felt more rooted in Millennial nostalgia, buttoned-up, and tailored for mass appeal.
STANDOUT CONCEPTS
Of the 32 teams’ Schedule Releases, these were a few of my highlights *sports center noise*
🧊🏆Coolest: Minnesota Vikings
In my family, when something is a primal display of toughness we don’t say it’s “savage” we say “that’s viking.” The Minnesota Viking’s schedule release video had me saying “that’s viking.” They didn’t simply make a video, they did a whole marketing stunt. To prove their fans “bleed purple and gold,” they immortalized the schedule via a series of tattoos on willing participants. Couple this clever concept with slick editing and an under two-minute run-time and let’s just say if I was giving out championships for Schedule Release Day concepts, Minnesota would take home a ring.
🤣🏆 Best humor: Tennessee Titans
Stealing from the SNL playbook, the Titans went the parody route with a spoof prescription drug commercial. With the silly slang-adjacent name, Schedule-rizi, the drug promises to treat Football Season Withdrawal or “FSW.” My one critique of this concept is that it’s a bit generic and I think it would be more effective if it was more specific to what makes the Titans unique.
⌚🏆Timeliest pop culture reference: Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens spoofed as well but they went with Severance (with Apple TV’s blessing and partnership.) Coming on the heels of the second season finale, the short adopted the show's signature style and features the line “the schedule is mysterious and important.” Need I say more?
💋🏆Most “for the girls”: New York Giants
Leave it to New York to feed the girls. With yet another spoof (apparently I have a type), they did a spin on Love Island, personifying each of their opponents as reality tv show contestants. The Chiefs were represented by a girly pop band named Destiny aka “Dynasty,” the 49ers by an analytics loving tech bro, and the (Detroit) Lions by an Eminem lookalike.
💿🏆Most unique: Arizona Cardinals
While many of the videos leaned into styles that tend to be popular on YouTube, I was especially impressed by the execution from the Arizona Cardinals “18 Bars,” an official song drop complete with a music video. In addition to a music video, they also released a Lyric Video–a staple on YouTube–making it feel even more legit.
OTHER NOTABLE INSIGHTS:
13 of 32 did skits & spoofs
19 were presented by a brand partner, (9 of which were Ticketmaster, 5 Seat Geek)
A dominant strategic through line: 6 leaned into nostalgia
Houston Texans brought back “Wazzup” in their video that featured "a nostalgic 2000s feel” with cameos from Alix Earle, Sketch, Ryan Trahan, Liza Koshy, Dennis Quaid, and many more.
Chiefs chief marketing officer Lara Krug said to The Hollywood Reporter of their decision to do a Cash Cab mini reboot “Chiefs Cab”: “It’s such a nostalgic show with huge fans behind it. We thought, ‘What if we are able to bring it back and recreate it?’”
The Washington Commanders chose to “unveil their 2025 season schedule with the nostalgia of the classic video game Rollercoaster Tycoon." And they weren’t the only ones, 4 teams leaned into (nostalgic) gaming
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This Week In Cool Shiny Culture:
🎧 Megan’s Cool: Kaley’s research made a cameo on The Town
I’m a religious consumer of Matt Belloni’s The Town so imagine my delight when I was listening the other day and said to myself “hey that stat sounds familiar.” In a recent episode of the podcast that covers the nitty gritty of the entertainment industry titled “The Five Biggest Stories in TV: HBO Max Is Back, NFL Goes Global, and Netflix’s Franchisification” Belloni takes us through the buzziest topics on everyone’s mind right now including YouTube’s recent dominance in the traditional TV landscape. In it, he reads an interesting finding from research done by our very own Kaley Mullin in her role at YouTube: “More than half of Gen Z surveyed would rather watch their favorite creator talk about a live event than watch the live event itself.” How cool!!
🎓 Kaley’s Cool: Bennydrama’s Overcompenstating won me over
Overcompensating on Prime by creator and Internet personality Benito Skinner, better known as Bennydrama, has been such a pleasant surprise! The comedy follows Benny, a college freshman grappling with an identity crisis as he goes from prom king jock to gay college newbie. A particularly hilarious scene follows him getting hazed trying to join a frat by being forced to drink a beta fish (because the pet store was out of goldfish.) The series is more joke dense than I was expecting, and Benny, who I sometimes find to be a little grating online, is super charming and likable in the series he created and stars in. Another cast standout is Holmes, a nonbinary actor playing the fun slutty roommate to the female lead. As Hailee, she’s hilariously unhinged but grounded by her ride or die loyalty, and is a delight to watch.
🎨 Megan’s Shiny: Artist Eliza Bee Henderson’s “Art Car”
This is what the kids would call “an excellent use of free will.” Artist Eliza Bee Henderson came across my fyp sharing her art car where over the last six months she’s painstakingly hand painting a masterpiece. While she says she knows it will “devalue” the car, she puts more value in the joy it brings her to make it personal.
🎙️ Kaley’s Shiny: None of this is True by Lisa Jewell.
Hat tip to Karissa for recommending this psychological thriller about a female podcaster celebrating her forty-fourth birthday who meets her birthday twin, an eccentric woman who claims she’s on the brink of changing her life. They begin a podcast that unintentionally turns into a true crime podcast and eventually a hit Netflix documentary. The book is interspersed with scenes from the ”Netflix documentary,” which works to simultaneously make the novel a fun, topical read and builds tension toward the big reveal. Not my usual genre, but I was hooked, finishing it in two days, kept up late by the page turning suspense.
Opposite of Cynical: Cute Little Baby Bunnies
Must see TT: Amy Poehler perfectly summing up the generational divide on money
Kaley’s Sabbatical check-in week 1
One week down in my seven week sabbatical and I’ve already completely lost track of the day of the week. Success! I haven’t had any profound breakthroughs or rewired my nervous system, but have hit my goals of exercising and meditating 3x a week. I’ve also redownloaded Duolingo to brush up on my Spanish and a new app called Art Daily that sends me a piece of artwork to learn about each day. Art is a real cultural blind spot for me. I don’t really like art museums (I like sculptures and architecture but can pass on inside art). And I don’t know anything about art movements. So I’m going to learn a little bit!
HAGS,
Megan & Kaley