Lessons in PR and marketing from the NFL draft

We can all learn something about PR and marketing from the NFL draft. Johnny Manziel’s team includes a PR firm, and as Rick Burton, a professor of sport management at Syracuse University, told the Dallas Morning News, “He’s built a brand for himself as Johnny Football. He seems to be comfortable in his own skin.”

The draft itself has been completely transformed from its earliest day, when it was as an event restricted to football insiders, to today: Months of build-up, exhaustive stats, hype, speculation and analysis culminate in a three-day televised primetime event covered by two networks and thousands of journalists and watched by 3,500 fans in person, not to mention on TV. As evidenced in a compelling New York Times slide show documenting this evolution, the draft has truly become a media and marketing spectacle.

In many ways, it’s a sporting event as highly anticipated as the football season it precedes. And that’s effective marketing.

marketing from the NFL draft