NFL Marketing Misfire?

NFL Marketing Misfire?

As the latter end of the year approaches, the NFL season
starts, and it’s a good time to look at the niche marketing
potential of football, and an opportunity missed by the
NFL…?

I remember when I first started in affiliate marketing, one
of the first big successes I had came with NFL gear. I found
that people searched in big numbers for specific team
merchandise, and it was possible to market to just those
people, and provide them what they wanted.

For example, I found a site selling replica helmets that had
an affiliate programme. I joined it and set up links to
specific products, maybe a Dallas Cowboy helmet. Then I used
pay per click advertising, so the ad was only shown to
people who typed ‘Dallas Cowboy helmet’ into Google.

This is classic niche marketing, I didn’t even have my own
website, and the model can be followed today, just as it can
in many other niches.

What I find a bit surprising though, is that in all the
years I’ve been following football from over here in
Britain, I don’t see that many changes in the jersey or
helmet designs.

If you look at soccer in Britain, the teams have 3 different
new shirts every season, which is nothing other than getting
the fans to buy over. Of course they do, so as not to look
out of date, the sales justify doing it and so it happens
the next year and the next.

The basic traditions of the shirt stay the same, but there
are noticeable differences.

Why don’t the NFL do this? With a soccer shirt costing
around $100, it’s big money for the clubs.

In the NFL the difference is that the teams are a franchise
of the NFL, and it’s the NFL that holds the rights.

That still doesn’t explain why the NFL doesn’t do it.

Then of course you have the helmets as well. I reckon it’s a
glaring miss by the NFL, a drop in the end zone.

I’ll still be making money from niches like NFL merchandise,
but every time I see the jerseys I’d love to see something
new.

Gordon Bryan is an internet marketer from the UK, and NFL
fan! To find out more about cashing in with niche marketing
go to: www.gordonbryan.com/nicheriches.html

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