Every year, NFL franchise’s churn out goofy videos to announce their team’s season schedule. In 2023, the Jacksonville Jaguars elevated their schedule release video from clickbait fodder into a full-blown Hollywood production. By bringing in writer/director Asher Grodman (CBS's Ghosts) and committing to a concept about film craft, their video was not just a gift to football fans, it was a love letter to cinema. Additionally, it was released as the WGA and SAG were fighting for the future of their industry. With national attention on the business of entertainment, the Jacksonville Jaguars celebrated the craft that goes into entertainment.

Conspiracy theories that the "NFL is scripted” have spread like wildfire through the football community for years. With the 2023 Schedule Release video, Asher Grodman and the Jacksonville Jaguars found a unique opportunity to capitalize on this theory, building their brand and their audience.

Traditionally, schedule release videos (goofy non-narrative videos released by NFL teams to announce game schedules) are really just for football fans. The center of the joke of the 2023 Schedule Release video is the juxtaposition of the football and performing arts communities. So, the Jacksonville Jaguars had a much larger wealth of cultural, national, and regional nuances to draw from and poke fun of than they normally would have. From broader references like Rodgers and Hammerstein's Oklahoma and Trevor Lawrence's famous blonde locks, to more easter-egg-style inside jokes like Urban Meyer's infamous flight protocol break and The Mayor of Munchkin City, the "NFL is scripted" concept proved to be a comic gold mine that was inclusive for fans of sports, the arts, and both. 

Additionally, since the style of the film is a behind-the-scenes featurette, audiences were granted unprecedented access to the organization. This has truly never been done before. And since everyone in the building was so eager to be a part of the process, from Jaguars owner Shad Khan to celebrity quarterback Trevor Lawrence, fans got to see a new, more intimate side to of these normally elusive heroes.

Every May, most teams of the National Football League release a "Schedule Release Video", a non-narrative goofy video that reveals the upcoming season's game schedule. The day these videos are released is the biggest ticket sales day on the calendar. The goals include drumming up excitement for the season, boosting ticket sales, engaging with current fans and making new ones, building branding, and garnering internet buzz. Since the Jacksonville Jaguars have historically been one of the smaller markets in the league, the goal was to do all of this, but also make a big splash, stand out from the pack, and make a video bold/big enough to reflect the new momentum the team had finally been making on the field and the new attention the team was receiving after drafting star quarterback Trevor Lawrence. 

It's been a tough two decades to be a Jacksonville Jaguar or a fan of. Few NFL teams have consistently ranked as low. However, in 2021, hope bloomed when the Jaguars drafted generational talent and college superstar, quarterback Trevor Lawrence. And in 2022, hope blossomed when they hired Super Bowl-winning coach Doug Pederson. For the first time in twenty years, things started to really turn around. The Jacksonville Jaguars had a miraculous 2022 season, and gained momentum on the field and built a lot of buzz. The 2023 Jacksonville Jaguars Schedule Release video capitalized on this unique moment in time where there was renewed interest in and attention on the franchise. The strategy was to go big and bold with this video to reflect the team's new standing, garner more attention, and create more fans.

The seed of the creative idea was a long standing conspiracy theory among die-hard NFL fans that the NFL is "scripted". Asher expanded upon and satirized this theory, asking "if this theory is true, what must also be true? How can we build upon this inside joke and take big, comic swings?" And thus, world-class athletes and coaches became actors playing characters whose fates were controlled by a writers' room. 

The Jacksonville Jaguars have always been a small market team in the NFL and suffered years of failure on and off the field. In 2022, their sudden momentum and newfound success shocked the football world and thrust the team into the limelight. The Jaguars were suddenly the cool, new kids on the block. That new brand perception was amplified by and reflected in this high-concept video.

The craft was to break the mold of traditional goofy Schedule Release videos and create a comedic narrative stand-alone film. To execute this task, the Jaguars brought in actor/filmmaker and lifelong Jaguars fan Asher Grodman (CBS's Ghosts), to conceive and lead the project. The Jaguars media department turned into a production studio as they worked alongside Asher as he wrote, produced, cast, directed, and lead the edit. The excitement surrounding the video's concept inspired an unprecedentedly large scale of involvement from the staff, star athletes, and former players, including the head coach and owner of the team. Principal photography was completed over two days (with three small pick up shoots) and the edit was done 10 days later, about 24 hours before the film was released across Jaguars social media platforms and youtube on 5/11/23. 

The impact of the film was astronomical. The 7.2 million views showed an 8862% increase in viewership metrics from the previous year’s edition which garnered 79k (source: Blinkfire). In the week following the release of the film, the Jaguars Index (brand health) jumped from 21st (of 32 in the NFL) to 6th and "brand reputation” in the NFL (“would you be proud for work for this organization”) leapt from 24th (again, of 32) to 3rd. After the release, the Jaguars were #1 in the league in "Buzz" (Source: YouGovBrandIndex). Additionally, ticket sales soared.

However, perhaps the greatest marker of the film's success is that it became a trendsetter in the sports world. In the months following the release, the NFL built their fall 2023 promotional campaign on the same concept. That winter, the Association of Tennis Professionals followed suit. 

The primary joke of the film is the long standing conspiracy theory that the NFL is “scripted." Writer/director Asher Grodman used this as inspiration to create a Christopher Guest style mockumentary that explored what it might look like behind the scenes if this theory was in fact true. Suddenly, world-class athletes who had loomed large in the heads of fans were just insecure actors, an exhilarating game was just an act, and the team's brand new Super Bowl-winning coach was a thespian who had cut his teeth doing regional theater. The eagerness with which the team and staff committed to poking fun of themselves and past mistakes let fans in to see sides of these heroes that are normally kept behind closed doors. That, coupled with the overall conceit of the project, proved to be a comedic gold mine.