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The National Football League is the most popular professional sports league in America and is one of the top leagues around the world. The NFL is an extremely competitive league where surprises happen on the field week in and week out which keeps the fans engaged. No matter where the game is being played, fans travel across the country to cheer on and support their favorite teams. To keep its fans happy and business booming, the NFL must do whatever they can in order to get as many people to watch their games as possible. One way the NFL has made live steaming, live statistics, and highlights available to its fans is NFL.com, the leagues official website. Every major league sport in the world has an easily accessible website so that fans can go on an see what’s happing around the sport whenever they want. NFL.com has gone above and behind to keep its fans happy and always updated. They have continued to add key features to their website year in and year out to provide its users with a multitude of resources. Although, the creation of a major website like NFL.com doesn’t just happen overnight.
Production:
When the NFL was officially founded back in 1920, the league itself had no control over individual team’s trade and service rights. This means that it was up to the franchises themselves to promote and go about business as they saw fit. But after multiple years of the league in place, the NFL decided against this ideology and saw it more beneficial to own all the rights of every single team in the league. This means that the NFL took over the Copyright, Trade, and service rights to every team. Once this dispute was all settled, the league continued with its usual production until the world wide web was finally created. When the Internet was first created, the NFL took it upon themselves to get right in on the action and start providing content to its fans online. The NFL signed a multi-year contract with Yahoo to grant fans live play-by-play audio and live statistics before NFL.com was ever created6. This gave fans access to NFL games live from their homes and cars which was never seen before6. But the league didn’t just stop there, they wanted to make it a point to have their services online for everyone around the world to access freely.
In 1998, the NFL signed a deal with Buena Vista Internet Group who paid the league $10 million to create and maintain the framework of NFL.com5. This deal allowed Buena Vista to share the profits of the website with the NFL for multiple years until their contract was up5. Whilst the creation of the site was being done, the NFL made another deal with ESPN to help create the content for the site and link one of the most diverse multi-media companies with the fastest growing sport of the time4. Just like the other deals made by the NFL, the profits of the website were only shared with ESPN for a short period of time4. Eventually in 2003, the website was fully functional and up and running and once all their contracts were finished with other companies, they retained full ownership of the site.
The league currently backs and pays for the whole website as well as controls all marketing and advertisement plans. When using the site, you will usually come across ads before you watch a highlight video, news video, or fantasy video. The league accepts payments from outside sources to be featured on their site before any of the three videos listed above are played by users. Although NFL.com doesn’t have a true owner, most of the responsibility of the site falls upon Brian Rolapp who is the chief Media and Business Officer of the NFL1. Rolapp is not specifically in charge of the site, but he handles and has handled all aspects of NFL media since 20171.
Consumption:
The consumers of NFL.com can range from you every day average joe to the most famous celebrities in the world. When it come to the NFL’s website, there is no specific target consumer as the existence of the site is meant to keep those who love football always updated. The only specific trait all consumers of the site have in common is that they all love football. That’s why the main users of the site are NFL fans, fantasy football players, or family members of players in the league. Although there’s only a few categories of users, there is an average 15.7 million viewers per game this NFL season which brings high amounts of users to NFL.com every week2. Not all 15.7 million viewers use NFL.com to watch the games, as they are probably watching on a tv, but even if an eighth of the total viewers use the site to watch the games that still brings about 1.9 million users per week.
One of the main reasons so many people use and love NFL.com is because it is free to all users. No matter who or where you are, you can use NFL.com as long as you have connection to the internet. The site is also available on all platforms and can be downloaded as an app onto your phone or computer. NFL.com is also advertised regularly on live TV, as pop-up ads on the internet, and even on Amazon Prime occasionally. Even though the website regularly maintains its user’s week by week they still try to encourage others to utilize their sites and watch the NFL games. Also, a new feature was recently released on the site called NFL+. This new feature grants users’ access to every live game being played throughout the league, live fantasy statistics, and discounts on the NFL shop and NFL tickets7. The best feature of this new package is that instead of only being able to watch primetime games and the games closest to your region, it allows you to watch every single game live7. This package is being offered at $40 per season or $4.99 a month7.
Regulation:
When it comes to regulation of NFL.com, the NFL takes multiple different avenues to protect their website and its services. The NFL allows all users to access the terms and conditions of the site to prevent any problems before they can even surface. One of the most crucial terms the NFL harps on would be the copyright rights of NFL.com3. This tends to be the most frequent problem that occurs, and it is very important regarding the reputation of the league itself and its website. This condition states that the NFL owns or licenses all copyright rights in the text, images, photographs, video, audio, graphics, user interface, and other content available on the website3. This prohibits users from copying, reproducing, modifying, distributing, displaying, performing, or transmitting any of the contents of the Services for any purposes3. If this condition is broken it would mean that a user of the site has taken some form of service provided by the NFL and is promoting it as their own work which could lead to serious repercussions.
Similar to the copyright rights of NFL.com listed above, the NFL also owns all rights in product, company, and club names as well as their logos3. All users are prohibited from using or misusing any of the trademarks associated with the NFL without a license3. With both the copyright rights and trademark rights, the NFL is very serious about people claiming anything the NFL owns as their own ideas or work. NFL.com also includes forms of communication between users either on their fantasy sites or message boards and users are expected to be respectful and are liable for whatever they choose to say3. Any unacceptable comments can be reported and could cause you to be kicked out of the respective site for a period of time3.
Additionally, on some features of NFL.com like NFL network or NFL+, subscriptions are required, followed by information collection3. Once your information is given to the NFL, they have the right to send you emails, conduct analysis on your behavior, and share your information with outside sources3. When relating to information sharing, the NFL would do this to gain a profit on your social profile, find your interests and provide advertisements based off them, and provide geographically relevant services based on your location3. The NFL goes about regulating their site in a variety of ways but most importantly, they prohibit all users of their services to ever use their trademark or copyright rights as their own.
Identity:
The NFL has an identity of being one of the fastest growing and most popular professional sports in the world. With this identity, whatever content they create or websites they create take on a similar view from consumers. So, NFL.com is looked at as the website created by the national football league that provides users with access to live footage of one of the most popular and fastest growing sports in the world. To gain such an identity, you must have a group of people who care about your service, someone to produce it, and someone to regulate it. In the case of NFL.com, Buena Vista Internet Group and ESPN helped the NFL create the website and the NFL handles all regulation of the service on its own. But the reason the site is so successful is because of how much people around the world love the game of football and want to watch their favorite teams compete week to week.
https://www.nfl.com/news/nfl-fantasy-2022-start-em-sit-em-week-14-wide-receivers : Fantasy start and sit advice for week 14 of NFL season.
However, not all people really care to watch football at all but would never actually take it out on those who do. It’s simply just a choice to not utilize NFL.com and no one will ever be upset or hold it against you if you do. The beauty of using this site is that you just have to have a little bit of an interest in football. It will probably help you understand the website and what you’re watching if you have some simple knowledge about football and its rules, but it’s not required to use the site. NFL.com has built itself a very positive identity off years of use and entertainment as well as servicing such a well-known professional sports league such as the NFL.
Representation:
When you think of NFL.com and who it represents this answer could vary to the league itself, the teams in the league, the players, or the fans of the sport. Every single one of these people or bodies are represented by this website in their own way. The only one specific thing the site represents is football. This website was created with the sole purpose of providing live coverage, statistics, and highlights of NFL football. However, all the players, the teams, the fans, and the league itself are all covered under the umbrella of football because they all play a pivotal role in the creation and usage of the website. Players around the country put in work every single day just to stay in the NFL while you have collegiate players giving it there all just to have a shot at playing in it one day. This website signifies all their hard work and dedication by displaying it to the public and recording players names whenever they make a play. On the other hand, you have coaches, general managers, and owners who have spent their entire lives being around the game of football and generating as much information as they can to help their teams win. NFL.com tracks the wins and losses of every team in the NFL which can represent how much success all these coaches and managers are having for the world to see.
https://www.nfl.com/videos/can-t-miss-play-brady-ties-game-at-0-03-in-fourth-quarter-with-3-yard-td-pass-to :Video showing Tom Brady’s last second touchdown throw to win the game.
NFL.com signifies several individuals sacrifices and hard work to create a platform for people around the world to see. But, to showcase these individuals, the site must be organized in an appealing way that will make people want to utilize it. This can range from the language of articles all the way to the organization of the site. The language involved with the content on NFL.com is usually always critical but carries an intense tone with it because of all the evaluations and criticizing taking place within the website. But a joyful feeling always follows since the football season is ongoing, and the fans are always so happy to be involved and updated with recent league news. This site is also constructed in a way where it is extremely easy to navigate and find exactly what you’re looking for using headers and spacing.
References:
- “Brian Rolapp – Chief Media and Business Officer – Linkedin.” Accessed December 6, 2022. https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-rolapp-73149b25.
- Karp, Austin. “NFL Game Viewership Lower with Thursday Night Shuffle.” NFL game viewership is lower with Thursday night shuffle. Sports Business Journal, November 4, 2022. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2022/11/04/Media/NFL-average-viewership-down-Thursday-Night-Football-Amazon.aspx.
- “Official Site of the National Football League.” NFL.com. Accessed November 8, 2022. https://www.nfl.com/legal/terms.
- “NFL Interactive Forms Multi-Year Partnership With ESPN Internet Group for Production of NFL.com”. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:3ST5-DWM0-007D-M55J-00000-00&context=1516831.
- “BV Internet Group will call signals at NFL.com”. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:4F6D-33N0-00TC-W3T5-00000-00&context=1516831.
- “NFL and Yahoo! Announce Agreement; NFL Teams with Yahoo! Sports in Content and Distribution Deal; Includes Webcasting of Live Game Audio for First Time on NFL.com”. https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:41BJ-2NR0-00RH-43PY-00000-00&context=1516831.
- “NFL+.” Subscribe to NFL plus. Accessed December 6, 2022. https://id.nfl.com/subscriptions/select/nflplus?signinpages=checkout&signuppages=checkout%2Cfavoriteteam&upsellType=secondary-nav&upsellLocation=nfl.com%3Aplus%3Alanding&redirecturl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nfl.com%2Fplus%2F.