SBJ Football: NFL future unclear for "All or Nothing" series

The NFL’s involvement in the Amazon Prime original docuseries “All or Nothing” is on ice as league officials review its strategic direction, sources said. The series skipped 2020 due to the pandemic, and its future is unclear.

The dilemma is mostly in the timing of the show, which was always intended to give fans an inside look at a team during the season, as opposed to the higher-profile training camp series “Hard Knocks” on HBO. “All or Nothing” viewership underwhelmed, likely because it aired in the offseason.

However, the obvious solution to that -- accelerating production to air episodes during the season -- is a nonstarter for coaches already reluctant to allow cameras into sensitive team functions. NFL officials emphasize the show is not dead, and the pandemic is the primary reason there was no production in 2020.

With Amazon now holding exclusive rights to “Thursday Night Football” starting in 2023, the safe money is on the NFL and Amazon to stay close on shoulder programming. But don’t expect “All or Nothing” back in the same form it took from 2015 to 2020, even as Amazon Prime continues to export the concept into other sports.

Titans Chief Marketing & Revenue Officer Gil Beverly plans to double all local revenue in five years, a goal based on his and owner Amy Adams Strunk’s belief that current deals systematically undervalue the Nashville market. Sponsorships today price Nashville as a mid-tier city, but Beverly will argue it’s become the cultural peer to New Orleans and Las Vegas as the sports and entertainment scene explodes.

“From where I sit, Nashville punches above its weight,” says Beverly, now starting his third year. That argument will get a test run with major renewals pending in beer (A-B InBev and Miller share now), and soft drinks (Coca-Cola is the incumbent), and hopefully with big deals in emerging categories like sportsbooks (they want to add two alongside BetMGM) and cryptocurrency, Beverly said (Crypto isn’t yet an approved team category, but talks to date mostly involve transactions, he said). Plans to renovate Nissan Stadium and develop the surrounding neighborhood will play a key role in goosing those numbers too, as do better results on the field.

Last month, Beverly hired EA Sports and Suns vet Gary Treangen as his new VP/corporate partnerships, moving longtime sponsorship salesman Ralph Ockenfels over to lead foundation fundraising. Treangen will be asked to create a framework of sponsorship tiers as he finds new money, and Ockenfels’ mission is to broaden the foundation’s revenue beyond the Adams family wealth.

That “small town with a big vibe” dynamic could work against him though -- there’s limited local corporate buyers for a wide range of sports and entertainment options. But “this is a football town in a football state,” Beverly says boldly. “No disrespect to any other players in the market, but we think we bring something extra."

The NFL and NFLPA released their annual lab testing results for helmets this week, and the top three-performing models all carry the brand name of a company that’s out of business. How’s that? Let’s get caught up on the extraordinary last 18 months in the life of Seattle-based Vicis.

Vicis made a name for itself quickly in helmet tech after its 2013 founding, but six years later, the money ran out. With its ZERO2 model still in development, the board laid off nearly all of its 110 employees, went into receivership and looked to see what they could get for what was left. Less than a month into the pandemic, Innovatus Capital Partners paid $2.85 million for Vicis, leaving the 389 investors wiped out.

But Innovatus wanted to see what the engineers at Vicis could do without the rest of the business hanging over their heads. They kept VP/Product Development Jason Neubauer around to lead a team of 10. In December, Innovatus created a new company, Certor Sports, to consolidate its sporting goods holdings, which includes Vicis.

This February, Vicis launched its ZERO2 model, the second generation of the well-reviewed ZERO1. In the NFL-NFLPA lab testing, versions of the ZERO2 took the top 3 spots out of 29, with one specifically designed for lineman -- the Trench model -- taking the No. 2 spot. It’s the first position-specific helmet authorized by the NFL. “It’s been insanely rewarding, to be able to bring back a skeleton crew that was definitely a group of people already involved in this initial goal, and finish what we started,” Neubauer said.

• The latest episode of "SBJ Spotlight" looks at the commitment of the NFL and its partners to making next week's Draft in Cleveland an important milestone in the return from the pandemic. Guests include Panini America's Jason Howarth and ESPN's Seth Markman.

• The stadium lease agreement among Erie County, New York state and the Bills expires in 2023, and team co-owner Kim Pegula touched on what the future may hold in Buffalo. Pegula, appearing on the "Navigating Sports Business" podcast, said: "No matter what happens -- whether it’s a very large renovation, whether it’s a new stadium … Bills fans can expect it to be very reflective of our community. … We’re not going to have a brand new stadium that looks like what they have in Vegas or even out in L.A. That's not who we are as a community. … Our fans deserve state of the art …. But at the same time feels like it’s home."

• There’s some difference of opinion about how impactful yesterday’s NFL rule change allowing more flexibility in uniform numbers will be. The long-standing rule requiring players to buy out excess supply of their current replica jerseys if they want to make a change right away may hinder switches initially. But do not underestimate player interest, a high-level team source told me. The league is full of players who pine for their old college numbers. Of course, anything that leads to volatility in jersey design leads to new sales, as retail analyst Matt Powell told The Athletic.

• Some of the NFL’s fellow tech sponsors were a bit vexed when Cisco, already a hardware equipment supplier to the NFL, joined their ranks as a league “technology partner” last week. “This was surprisingly poor form by the NFL,” said one exec from an NFL tech sponsor. See more from my colleague Terry Lefton in SBJ Marketing.

• Kelli Masters is one of several female agents representing top players in this year’s NFL draft, and a lot has changed in the 16 years she has represented players in the league. “As a woman who was one of the few, besides Kristen (Kuliga), and Christina Phillips, we were still having to explain, ‘Oh yeah, women can do this,’ and being defensive,” Masters recalled to Liz Mullen in this week's SBJ. “We don’t have to do that anymore.”

• CFL Commissioner Randy Ambrosie said that talks with the XFL have "dealt with the financial logistics of a partnership and how they might work and not about such things as rules or field size," according to the CP. He added, "There’s almost an infinite possibility of good outcomes, but it’s got to start with making sure we can improve our business model so it matches the quality of the game itself." This week, the CFL pushed back the start of its 2021 season and shortened the schedule too, in a bit to keep the year alive despite COVID. On one hand, it’s a sign that the pandemic continues to threaten the cash-strapped league. But it’s also proof that there is a path back to the field after the 2020 season was canceled, causing extraordinary financial pain. 

SBJ has a number of openings as the sports business is poised for an exciting and rapid return. We currently have open positions in marketing -- a Director of Marketing and Marketing Manager. There is also an opening for a Staff Writer in our Charlotte, NC newsroom. Interested candidates can submit a resume and clips to dalbright@sportsbusinessjournal.com .