Given the NFL’s massive multi-generational audience and consumer trends pointing towards younger generations spending more time with gaming content, the NFL identified an opportunity to reach a broader crossover audience of football fans and casual gamers. Enthusiast Gaming’s creative vision, revenue model, and scale in reaching gaming communities presented a solution to this white space opportunity. Together the NFL and Enthusiast Gaming launched NFL Tuesday Night Gaming to deliver a younger fan base and foster innovation by authentically introducing the NFL to the next generation of fans in a format that has never been done before by any professional sports league. NFL TNG is a cross-platform content ecosystem that complements the NFL’s esports strategy and annual calendar to engage fans year-round with culturally relevant content across social platforms.

NFL Tuesday Night Gaming represents the intersection of gaming and sports culture, building a bridge between two distinct audiences into one unified viewing experience. In its inaugural season, the content program featured NFL players, NFL Legends, and gaming content creators to compete live in teams across popular video game titles including Madden NFL, Fall Guys, Fortnite, Rocket League, and other E-T rated titles. By connecting NFL players with their competitors across the League and popular gaming content creators, NFL Tuesday Night Gaming was able to highlight the relatability of NFL athletes to the gaming audience and build fan loyalty. To amplify the brand messaging, NFL TNG social channels complemented the main live show, featuring high-quality shoulder programming, regularly engaging with participating talent, and authentically tapping into the gaming community.

NFL Tuesday Night Gaming is strategically designed with a young audience in mind, uniting content creators and NFL players to bring together the gaming and sports communities. The series was inspired by relevant consumer insights around interests in gaming content and to provide a visual perspective of NFL players’ personalities that audiences typically don’t get to see on the field. Coupled with the youth audience’s shift from traditional TV viewing to shorter content consumption, these insights helped the team thoughtfully build and manage their community with purpose, employing unique strategies for each platform. YouTube functioned as the home for the live show in addition to weekly shoulder content. TikTok provided custom on-set moments and allowed NFL TNG to engage with their audience based on viral trends. Twitter covered the live broadcast and engaged with participating talent while Instagram gave their audience a behind-the-scenes look at the show.

NFL Tuesday Night Gaming delivered content in gaming entertainment and NFL calendar white space, and as a result, successfully helped the NFL reach a younger audience. As a new brand, NFL TNG social channels garnered 54,000 followers with 40% month-over-month growth in less than 6 months. Following season one, the TikTok channel audience was 38% aged 13-17, while both the NFL TNG TikTok and Twitter channels accumulated over 22,000,000 impressions each, demonstrating massive consumer awareness. The 18-episode program garnered nearly 73,000,000 impressions across live broadcasts, talent co-streams, and social, with over 4,200,000 hours watched. Viewer and talent engagement increased throughout the season as interest from both the NFL and gaming talent grew, introducing their large audiences to NFL TNG. For example, one episode featured two of the biggest content creators and Fortnite icons – Ninja and Bugha – coaching their NFL team members in competition.