Call for expressions of interest for editor in chief, Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media and Culture
This article looks at how the National Football League (NFL) uses television and new media technologies to engage in a pedagogical project of teaching the game and its culture to children so that they can produce themselves as fans valuable to the NFL. The NFL takes these steps because becoming a fan of any sport is not a passive process; it requires significant, focused labor to learn the requisite knowledge and perform an identity tied to the consumption of specific cultural commodities. We specifically look at the television show NFL Rush Zone, produced in partnership with Nickelodeon, and the website nflrush.com that together form an inter textual pedagogical and performative narrative space where children can learn to be football fans and simultaneously perform a fan identity. Since fans are central to the NFL's $9.5 billion annual revenues, we argue that this process of subjectification is also a process of commodification. "Not everyone that's a fan is going to play the game, so we've really built out what we think is a good portfolio of ways to connect with kids in the 6 to 13 range." Peter O'Reilly, NFL VP/Fan Strategy &Marketing (Show, 2009) Since the 1960s, the National Football League (NFL) has understood that continuous growth in market share and revenue is tied to aggressive, innovative marketing strategies that constantly create new fans (Oriard, 2007) Expanding its fan base is important since fans are what sponsors pay for when advertising with the NFL, making the social process of creating new fans also a process of commodification where people take on economic value as fan commodities. That basic fact about the NFL has not changed, but aspects of its marketing strategy have shifted with the ascendance of neoliberal capitalism. In particular, the NFL has come to understand that continued growth in market share necessitates attracting new fans beyond their traditional target market of adult males. One group that has taken on increased importance for the NFL is youth, both male and female. Youth are important since 55% of avid NFL fans, those that consume more games and merchandise than casual fans, said they became interested in football in elementary school or earlier. Seventy five percent of avid fans and 62% of casual fans played football at some level as a child (Show, 2009) As O'Reilly's quote above suggests, the NFL does not rely on parents alone to perform the cultural labor of producing their children as avid NFL fans. Similarly, the NFL understands that youth can participate in the game and its culture by means other than just playing it in the manner of their fathers. In order to produce new fans, the NFL uses television and new media technologies to engage in a pedagogical project of teaching the game and its culture to children so that they can produce themselves as fans valuable to the NFL. The NFL takes these steps because becoming a fan of any sport is not a passive process, it requires significant, focused labor to learn the requisite knowledge and perform an identity tied to the consumption of specific cultural commodities. This NFL led process of identity formation, or subjectification, represents a very sophisticated stage of lifestyle CONTACT Jeffrey Montez de Oca jmontezd@uccs.edu Department of Sociology, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, 1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA. (c) 2016 Taylor Francis POPULAR COMMUNICATION 2016, VOL. 14, NO. 1, 3 11 http:/dx.doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2015.1084623 marketing and engages multiple, inter textually linked media platforms. Focusing on everyday activities, consumer behaviors, interests, opinions, and demographic characteristics, NFL marketing takes advantage of new technologies to magnify people's engagement in identity constructions by offering a greater range of commodities to choose from and greater customization that tailors mass produced commodities to individualized self expressions and desires (Chernev, Hamilton, Gal, 2011, p. 66; Plummer, 1974, p. 34) At the same time, NFL lifestyle marketing guides fans to work on themselves so that they can make themselves more valuable commodities, that is, avid NFL fans and active consumers. It is through this dual strategy of teaching fan knowledge and inculcating proper conduct that the NFL qualifies as an exemplary participant in a neoliberal economy an important context that helps illuminate the tactics of NFL marketing. Paul Treanor defines neoliberalism as: a philosophy in which the existence and operation of a market are valued in themselves, separately from any previous relationship with the production of goods and services, and without any attempt to justify them in terms of their effect on the production of goods and services; and where the operation of a market or market like structure is seen as an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action, and substituting for all previously existing ethical beliefs. (Treanor, 2005) The pedagogical and performative space that children enter through the various media platforms foster the development of an ethic that is filtered and acted out through the NFL brand. Formally, with the extensive integration of television and internet, one feeds the other in a kind of endless circle of promotion (Aarseth, 2006; Whitson, 1998) Kids peering outside of these self referential platforms for alternative narratives are undesirable for the NFL. Additionally, the NFL also abides by the rules of neoliberalism by fostering ways of being and knowing into its self contained world, thus "substituting for all previously existing ethical beliefs." As we will see, this is accomplished for kids entering the NFL marketing apparatus through the collapsing of work and play, the replacement of political citizenship with consumer citizenship, and in the process, the creation of kids as commodities all enacted within an inter textual, commodified space created by the NFL. The process of commodification we describe here is playing out amid broader forces that are creating cultural change and market instability. One site of change is in terms of demographics and society. As a result, the United States is quickly becoming truly multiracial, and youth have a greater range of and more flexible gendered identities to choose from than in previous generations. While this challenges previous ways of marketing the game, it also presents opportunities to target new demographics. The NFL would not pay Katy Perry to perform during the 2015 Super Bowl halftime show if it were only interested in appealing to middle aged men. In addition to demographic changes, football faces a greater array of competing consumer leisure activities than ever (e.g. soccer, basketball, alternative sports, video games, social media) and there is increasing public awareness of and concern about football's health risks. To meet these challenges, the NFL has built a sophisticated and thorough marketing strategy that follows youth across media platforms. Peter O'Reilly explains, "what we tried to do was not just expect that kids would come to the NFL and the game would be handed down to them, but that they could find the NFL in all the places where they're already spending time" "Child's Play," 2010) Since youth spend a good deal of time in media spaces, NFL marketing is media intensive. Therefore, this article looks at the NFL's youth oriented marketing strategies in two inter linked areas of media: (1) Television NFL Rush Zone is a Nickelodeon television series that serves as the narrative center that structures the rest of the NFL's youth oriented media. The basic premise of the show is that a group of kids who play youth football are superheroes, akin to the Super Friends (1973 1986) and they protect the world one NFL stadium at a time. Consistent with other Nickelodeon shows, viewers watch a mixed race and mixed gender team of young heroes in order to learn about consumer citizenship structured by postracial and postfeminist discourse (Banet Weiser, 2007) 4 J. MONTEZ DE OCA ET AL.