Forbes.com contributor David Vinjamuri recently wrote an article titled “The Referee Lockout Is Hurting The NFL Brand.” Vinjamuri claims the NFL’s treatment of the referee lockout as a “purely financial matter” was wrong and will position the NFL “…as a sport where rich owners wring the life out of refs and players…”
As a lover of football, it was difficult to watch the now infamous call during Monday Night Football’s Greenbay Packers vs. Seattle Seahawks game. Fans, players and coaches alike were very vocal in their impatience with the replacement refs throughout the season. But at the end of the day, will you stop watching football?
Be honest- the answer is (most likely) no.
While I agree the NFL could have at least sped up the labor dispute process, this will be, at most, a blemish on their reputation. Since football is such an integral part of American culture and the NFL is the oldest and highest level of professional football being played today, this blemish will be forgotten as soon as a regular referee makes a bad call.
Case in point? It was only a year ago that the NFL could not reach a labor agreement with players, causing cancelled pre-season games. That could have caused a much bigger blow to the NFL brand. Fans buy tickets to see their favorite players live and advertisers pay top dollar for commercial airtime. And yet, sports bars didn’t shut down, Ticketmaster’s stock didn’t crash and you’re still watching football. In fact, the NFL has managed to create major hype from these pitfalls, garnering both fans and non-football watchers to tune into the games.
Like all major successful companies, the NFL knows how difficult it is to tarnish a brand that is so strong. With a strong fan base and a reputation of being a class-act, this organization will surely continue to thrive in this season and the ones to come.
Jazmine Ramirez
Account Executive
Daisho Creative Strategies
Hi David,
I think advertisers will likely stay. As long as the NFL has a client base (consumers) the advertisers will be there. Clearly any and all blemishes affect a brand and I’m sure the NFL felt the pressure to fix this quickly, but we see it more as a short-term blemish.
I think fans are wise enough to know the NFL is influenced by finances. Our view is that the NFL is more like the stock market and less like Dell. Whole Life insurances and real estate investments are great, but you got to keep investing in the stock market as part of a diverse investment strategy… Nowhere else to go, you know what I mean?
I see your point. Let’s call it a dislocated shoulder, they’ll need to do some rehab, but they’ll be back in the game as good as before.
Frank Irias
Jazmine,
Thanks for the commentary. The tricky thing about brands, of course, is that it is impossible to directly measure their strength on a decision-by-decision basis. So Dell, for example, looked like an untarnished brand right until Jeff Jarvis started having trouble with his Dell laptop, received bad service from India and told the world about it. Of course, Dell had been giving bad customer service for several years and had declined in Consumer Reports rankings. But until the tipping point was reached, the brand looked untarnished.
A number of commenters have made this “advertisers and fans are not going to leave the NFL because of the refs” argument. And of course it is true. The problem is that it doesn’t tell us whether the lockout – and the player’s contract negotiation last year – had a marginal impact on the brand. I would suggest that all of these marginal impacts won’t affect ticket sales, viewership or advertisers unless they tip.
There is really only one data point in this whole debate – the speed with which a deal was reached with the refs after Monday Night’s game, when Goodell’s proposition that the replacement refs “would get better” and were essentially equal to the NFL refs was proven false for most fans. As you know from working in advertising a lot of the pressure that comes to bear on the NFL is private and may come directly from unhappy advertisers. So while you are undoubtedly right that this little drama hasn’t cost the NFL fans or advertisers I disagree that it has had no impact on the brand.
The bigger drama to watch will be how the issue of concussions and head trauma continues to play out, especially now that fans are more disposed to view the league’s actions as self-serving.