Nike Activates NFL Apparel Deal With New Season 32-Team ‘Color Rush’ Kit Campaign

While the NFL and Nike tout the Color Rush campaign as ‘an opportunity to get the entire home city engaged’, isn’t it really just more marketing savvy way to expand each franchise’s kit range and drive further apparel sales?

Much the same way that leagues like the Premier League in England have introduced third kits, or the NBA has had such success with its Christmas uniforms (see case study).

(American) Football aficionados will know that monochromatic uniforms have been a staple in the NCAA college game ever since Nike turned the Oregon Ducks into its apparel design lab.

The NFL has been a touch slower to react and adapt, largely driven by its penchant for tradition.

However, as it makes major moves to secure its top ranked status by securing new, younger audiences, with moves like its twitter broadcast deal, it is more open to experimenting with such trends.

While 100% of the proceeds from Color Rush kits will go to the NFL Foundation to fund health, safety and wellness programs for youth around the country, securing new, younger fans (customers) will be essential for the NFL if it is to achieve its goal of generating $25bn in revenue by 2027.

Nike’s 2016 Color Rush campaign follows not only its 2015 partner (which somewhat oddly claimed to both ‘disrupt’ and ‘unify’),

but also Nike Football’s pre-season NFL work which ranged from its CSR ‘Crucial Catch: Screening Saves Lives’ initiative to its ‘Nike Pro Football Camp’ campaign.

The former cause programme sees Nike, the NFL, its clubs, players, the NFL Players Association, and the American Cancer Society work together to saving lives from breast cancer and addressing the unequal burden of cancer in underserved communities.

Its ‘A Crucial Catch’ campaign focuses on the vital importance of regular breast cancer screenings and throughout October, NFL games will feature players, coaches, and referees wearing pink game apparel, as well as additional on-field and in-stadium branding — all to help raise awareness for this important campaign (see http://www.nfl.com/pink).

While Nike’s central NFL offseason campaign ‘Nike Pro Football Camp: Own the Summer. Dominate the Fall’ revolves around the idea that being a top pro player is a year-round commitment and that the summer is actually where star players gain their edge.

The initiative was fronted by Nike endorsers and NFL superstars like Odell Beckham Jr, Russell Wilson and Rob Gronkowski who ally with the sportswear giant to ‘Own The Summer, Dominate The Fall’..

The campaign is centered on an ambassador photo shoot that saw Nike bring its leading NFL endorsers to a Nike Pro Football Camp for some ‘serious head-to-head training’ captured in a promotional film.

This same attitude is also promoted by the brand as the annual Nike ‘The Opening’: a showcase for the best High school football talent held at the WHQ in Beaverton.

It was back in 2011 that Nike and the NFL announced its initial league-wide, five-year $1bn+ kit/apparel deal – seemingly outmanoeuvring incumbent Reebok and more recently arrived rivals like Under Armour with an investment substantially higher than Reebok’s previous deal which was reportedly valued at $250m over 10 years.

And in March 2015 Nike extended this on-field NFL apparel contract until 2019.