The NFL's partnership with Snapchat was developed to bring the world's most popular sports league to one of the leading mobile storytelling platforms. With millions of young football fans already interacting with Snapchat on a daily basis, bringing our unique, engaging, and interactive content to the platform for this highly sought-after group to consume made perfect sense.
The NFL doubled viewership of its highlight videos to 2 million in 2018. As one of the leading platforms for millennials, Snapchat was the perfect place to bring football to our younger fan base.
The NFL's goal in 2018 was to continue creating unique content that would specifically engage our social-oriented fans, while utilizing every aspect of Snapchat to its fullest extent. We also aimed to make our NFL Snapchat Discover Channel the go-to source for the latest big plays on Sundays.
NFL Official Snapchat Story
The NFL utilized its official Snapchat handle to provide viewers with unparalleled access to NFL games, players, and events. Most often, fans clicking into our story were greeted with exclusive, behind-the-scenes game content such as their favorite team huddling in the tunnel or up-close video of star players warming up. During games, fans were treated to a unique perspective– a side-line view of the in-game action, allowing viewers to feel like they are in the end zone for their favorite players' biggest moments. Finally, Snapchat viewers could feel like they were on the field, celebrating with the winning team after the game. We were able to capture this exclusive content and incredible access by sending members of the NFL Social team to cover primetime games for Snapchat and utilizing Live Content Correspondents at each stadium to help capture content as well. On non-gamedays, our Snapchat was home to player takeovers and behind-the-scenes action at NFL events such as the Combine, Draft, NFL Honors, and the Pro Bowl.
NFL Snapchat Discover Channel
The NFL was the first sports league to receive its own Snapchat Discover Channel. Since then, our channel has given hundreds of millions of fans around the globe the latest headlines and hot topics, trends and inside access videos, uniquely programmed for NFL fans on Snapchat. Each piece of content is selected specifically for our audience, and the storytelling, design, and animations are crafted to provide fans with the best experience on the platform.
Live Updating Highlights
NFL Snapchat rolled out live-updating Highlight Editions on Sundays throughout the 2018 regular season and playoffs. Every Sunday, fans were kept up to date with the latest big plays on the NFL Snapchat Discover Channel. From kickoff of the first game, up until the final whistle of the night game, fans were treated to rapid highlight updates showing the jaw-dropping highlights of the day. Our Super Bowl LIII Highlights Edition brought in 2.21 million unique viewers and over 42 million topsnap views.
Checkdown IG Stories
The goal of The Checkdown IG Stories this season was to combine exclusive access with discovery. On game days, our IG Stories featured videos from players in pre-game, inside-the-huddle pump-up speeches, on the field sideline and end zone content, and post-game real-time selfie reactions from players. This strategy was to bring fans as close to the action as possible every Sunday through a lens that few will ever be able to see.
On non-game days, our focus shifted to amplifying all things football-related from people outside the NFL bubble. Through submitted videos and reaching out to individuals who just post cool content on their own, we used Instagram Stories to shine a spotlight on other people's football talent and humor. Through IGS, we were able to find a string to otherwise unrelated football content.
NFL Live Stories
This season, Snapchat Live Stories were produced for every NFL game during the season, including the Pro Bowl, the Super Bowl, and other major NFL events. By combining broadcast game footage, behind-the-scenes content from the NFL's official story, unique content from team and player stories, and reaction footage from fan stories, each live story provided fans with a unique collection of content and perspectives to best cover the narrative of each game.
This season, the NFL Snapchat Discover page brought in 1.23 billion topsnap views and engaged users for over 154 million minutes. Throughout the year, millions of users came to us for amazing highlights, hilarious celebrations, behind-the-scenes access, insightful analysis, and an array of fun football-related content.
