The New England Patriots are one of the most successful NFL teams at all-but simply open an account on the Bluesky Social Media Plattform, that’s not possible. “We had an account on Bluesky for a short time,” says Fred Kirsch, the person responsible for digital content, in the club’s own podcast. “But the league asked us to extinguish the account because Bluesky is not a approved social media platform of the NFL.”
It is an anecdote that shows how close the partnership between the National Football League and the established social networks, especially X. The league and the platform, which used to be Twitter, have been cooperating for more than ten years. It is a deal that both benefit from.
Live sport important part of the growth strategy of X
For X, the main thing is to attract new users to the platform through the NFL, says Ann Pegoraro, sports management professor at the University of Guelph.
“Sport is one of the few events that still watch people live. For X this means: Sport brings a live audience to the platform, and this range can be made for money by selling advertising. It is an important part of the business strategy to be able to say: we have so many active users, see what happens during a live sports event! “
Cooperation with the NFL could be a model for other sports leagues
Unsurprisingly, the managing director of X, Linda Yaccarino, raves, then also when she talks about the partnership with the league.
X wants to have the best brands as a partner and there is no stronger brand than the NFL, Yaccarino says at a technology fair at the beginning of the year. The content of the NFL was called up billions of times, also thanks to their own NFL portal, on which the teams can present their content bundled. And Yaccarino expects other great sports leagues to follow this example.
The prerequisites are basically met, X is the perfect home for sports fans in many ways: During the games you can celebrate touchdowns within seconds or get upset about the referees – together with thousands like -minded people.
Cooperation with X brings the NFL range, money and data
Seven out of ten spectators would use a second screen during the games, says NFL media manager Brian Rolapp in an interview with the online portal Front Office Sports. Outside of the season, social media would also offer the opportunity to emotionally bind fans to the league, for example through discussions about transfer. And at the same time, the sale of image rights to the platforms is another source of income.
“We have very lucrative deals with all major platforms, not only in terms of range, but also financially,” says Rolapp. “And it is also an important way for us to measure consumption. We look at how the fans interact with the NFL what they do away from the game. What they do on social media is an important key figure for us.”
Twitter expert: “There could be a tipping point for the NFL brand”
Despite all the advantages – the partnership with X is now also risky, says researcher Ann Pegoraro. Especially because of the course that the platform took after the takeover by Elon Musk.
“We now have a platform without moderation, with hate speech and right -wing extremist politics. And I think that the NFL has to start to understand that there will be a tilting point for your brand,” said the professor.
Some fans are already criticizing the partnership with Musk’s platform. And in recent years, some companies have restricted their advertising activity to X after Musk has expressed anti -Semitic.
Many NFL fans and team owners have no problem with Trump
At the moment, however, there seems to be an opposite trend – because investing money for advertising on X is also a good way so as not to fall in favor with Musk and thus President Donald Trump. In addition, there are many Trump supporters, especially among football fans, who have no problem with extreme rights content that X now dominate.
“The NFL knows their audience and the team owners will certainly tend towards the Republicans and support the president. But in the end it is about business. As soon as the owners and the league start to lose money because sponsors are involved in their partnership due to their partnership X leave, there will be a change, “says Pegoraro.
Pegoraro considers negotiations between NFL and Bluesky as likely
She does not believe that the NFL would leave Musk’s platform completely. But in this case the league would look for alternatives – and maybe already do so.
“The NFL is probably already talking to Bluesky about a contract to be present on the platform. And if it serves the NFL business, they will go there too.”
Social division could also be visible in discussions about sport
However, it is unpredictable how Elon Musk would react if the NFL should also be active on the competitive platform. For bluesky, however, a deal with the NFL would be an opportunity to further expand the user base.
According to Pegoraro, this could lead to the fact that the political camps themselves would discuss sports themes on separate platforms in the future. The narrative of sport as a connecting social element would then be even more difficult to tell than already.