There’s a reason people use the phrase “the Super Bowl of…” to describe the big event in any industry. Over 100 million people watch the Super Bowl every year, and this year’s main event features the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs, two powerhouse teams that combined for 32 wins and six losses this season. In honor of the big game, we highlighted the two teams’ social media data, NFL sponsorships, player rankings, playoff activations, and more! 

Super Bowl Team Match Up

Both Super Bowl teams’ success on the field led to growth on social media. However, the Philadelphia Eagles capitalized on their success the most when it comes to social media. During the 2022 season, the Eagles racked up 83.9 million engagements across social media for $46.4 million worth of media value. Twenty-five million engagements, or 30%, came during the playoffs, further showing that winning matters. Despite having a similar following on Instagram and YouTube, and a significantly smaller following on TikTok, the Eagles outperformed the Chiefs on social media growth, engagement, and media value.

YouTube Wins Big for Chiefs and Eagles

YouTube was a key area of growth for both teams — with the Eagles growing their following by 82.7% and the Chiefs by 44.4%. Both the Eagles and Chiefs ran multiple YouTube campaigns throughout the season to engage fans with on-the-field and off-the-field content. 

The Chiefs ran their third season of “The Franchise,” a YouTube series that gives fans a behind-the-scenes look into how the team builds, trains, and wins, through the eyes of the players, coaches, and staff. The YouTube series is sponsored by the Chief’s naming rights partner GEHA (Government Employees Health Association). The non-profit healthcare association gained exposure in all 15 videos in the series, totaling more than 1.5 million video views.

The Eagles ran their fifth season of “Unscripted,” a similar YouTube series that gives fans a candid, behind-the-scenes look into the Eagles organization. The nine-video YouTube series, sponsored by Lincoln Financial Group, totaled more than 1.2 million video views. Using Blinkfire, users can accurately track all YouTube viewership data and demographics, making managing and reporting on this content more efficient for rights holders and brands.

During the playoffs, the Eagles earned over 530,000 more daily engagements on social media compared to the regular season.. The Chiefs received 419,000 more engagements during the playoffs. Fans want to engage with successful teams, and teams need to be prepared to sell content during successful moments for their organization.

Global Ranking — Followers: Top 10 Eagles & Chiefs Players

Super Bowl LVII is full of star power! It’s no secret fans are excited to see players like Patrick Mahomes, Jalen Hurts, the Kelce brothers, and Juju Smith-Schuster take the field this Sunday. Using Blinkfire’s Global Ranking, we ranked the top 10 players competing in the Super Bowl based on Instagram followers.

NFL Teams’ Playoff Activations

Speaking of selling, teams have been busy activating with brands around the playoffs. Campaign activations for the NFL Playoffs may have a shorter shelf life because of the one-game elimination format, but that doesn’t mean content can’t be monetized to create additional revenue streams while teams are in the hunt for the Lombardi trophy.

Kansas City Chiefs & Bud Light

The Chiefs have a long-standing partnership with Bud Light, and during the regular season they promote a #BudLightCelly campaign with the beer brand. During the playoffs, Bud Light transitioned to the official playoff partner of the Chiefs.

Check out this playlist of playoff activations across the NFL along with our featured 49ers example below.

San Francisco 49ers & United Airlines

The San Francisco 49ers’ official airlines partner, United Airlines, was the team’s presenting partner for the 2023 playoffs. Using Blinkfire Inventory Manager (BIM), users can create campaigns for activations like this to track and report on unique logo lockups. Blinkfire’s campaign tool helps to easily manage and accurately track campaigns, making reporting to partners and selling sponsorships easier than ever before. 

View insights into how posts in a campaign compare to the average post published by channel. For example, the 49ers’ posts with the United Airlines playoff logo lockup received 23.8K more engagements per post on Instagram compared to the team’s channel average, a 27.5% increase. 

Below is how Blinkfire’s Campaigns would look for this San Francisco 49ers and United Airlines playoff activation. We also gathered a playlist of posts capturing the 49ers and United Airlines playoff logo lockup on social media. 

NFL Sponsorships & Campaigns

On the league side of things, the NFL has been busy selling sponsorships all year long. Some of these season-long sponsors also carve out space during the NFL’s most profitable time of the year. We’ve highlighted a couple NFL sponsors from the 2022-2023 season and the 2023 playoffs: 

• Intuit: The official financial and accounting partner of the NFL; official presenting partner of divisional round and conference championships; official presenting partner of Super Bowl digital concert by Saweetie on Friday, Feb. 10.
• FedEx: The official delivery service of the NFL. Since 2003, FedEx has sponsored the NFL’s “FedEx Air & Ground NFL Players of the Week and NFL “Players of the Year” awards.
• Apple Music: The official presenting partner of the Super Bowl Halftime Show. The league and Apple Music announced a multi-year partnership in September 2022. 
• Amazon Web Services (AWS): The NFL’s Next Gen Stats series is powered by AWS throughout the regular season and playoffs.

We put a playlist of some of these activations and more from the NFL.

Advertisers Flock to the Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is known for outlandish and creative advertisements on TV and social media as brands try to be memorable during the big game. We want to highlight some pieces of content that caught our attention.

Molson Coors x DraftKings

Molson Coors is back in the Super Bowl ad rotation after rival Anheuser-Busch InBev’s 33-year-long control of alcohol advertising during the game ended. Keep an eye out for a clever partnership between Molson Coors and DraftKings at the Super Bowl. DraftKings, a popular sportsbook platform, is offering a free-to-play contest encouraging consumers to bet on the details of the Molson Coors ad spot (Miller Lite vs Coors Light) ahead of the big game. The prize? Winning a portion of a $500,000 prize pool. 

Molson Coors and Draftkings are telling a story with this activation. They aren’t just publishing a  fun, engaging advertisement and hoping it sticks but rather creating multiple touchpoints with consumers.

• Pre-Super Bowl: Building hype around their ad with an early announcement and an opportunity to be involved with the betting predictions through the “High Stakes Beer Ad.”
• During Super Bowl: Reaching consumers again during the game when the ad runs, creating deeper connections because fans are invested. 
• Post-Ad Spot: Re-engaging with consumers after the ad runs, as fans will check to see if they won part of the prize pool.
• Final Thought: Miller Coors CMO Michelle St. Jacques said it best in this Marketing Drive article: “By giving people the chance to predict every detail of the ad before it even runs, we’re bringing our fans along for the ride and getting them just as excited about our return to the big stage as we are.”  

Apple Music x NFL Super Fans 

As previously mentioned, Apple Music will be the presenting partner of the NFL’s Super Bowl halftime show, featuring nine-time Grammy award winning artist Rihanna. To promote the Super Bowl halftime show, Apple Music created a video where NFL super fans from every team around the league sang Rihanna’s song “Stay”. The result is hilariously entertaining and received over 164k engagements between Apple Music’s Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Connecting with Fans on Game Day  

Brands and influencers will try to break through during Super Bowl LVII. While TV ads can lead to success and exposure, they are expensive. Gone are the days where TV spots were the only way to reach audiences effectively during the top American sporting event. TikTok and other social media platforms offer cost-effective ways to target fans who plan to tune into the game. Pro Tip: If you’re looking for ideas on innovating your social media around game day, TikTok published this great article on how they suggest brands best use their platform.  

NFL teams and the league have been very active on TikTok during the 2023 playoffs. The top performing posts tend to be humorous, candid interviews, and Joe Burrow thirst-traps among other things. Check out this playlist of top TikToks from the NFL playoffs.

Every kid, fan, player, team, coach, and owner wants to make it to the Super Bowl. However, it’s so much more than just the game on the field. Teams and brands are focusing on social media management, selling sponsorships, creating content, and reporting to partners during the chaos of the NFL Playoffs. At Blinkfire, we want to help make those tasks more efficient with the most accurate data and advanced reporting tools in the industry. We hope this gave you some interesting insights and sparked ideas for your team, brand, or organization. Enjoy Super Bowl LVII on Sunday!

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