Zhamese Mead
BA 200: Managerial Communications
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE AND TWITTER MARKETING PARTNERSHIP
Executive Summary
The National Football League is the professional American football league consisting of
32 teams. Up until currently, the NFL has maintained a strong social media presence with one-
year contracts with social media platforms, one being Twitter. The NFL has begun considering
entering a two-year partnership with Twitter to expand its social media presence and general
viewable content to a wider audience.
This analysis will examine this partnership on the sides of both Twitter and the NFL and
determine whether this partnership will be beneficial to the NFL. From reviewing the
information on Twitter, such as its current financial state and corporate reputation, it has been
determined that this partnership would not be beneficial to the NFL. Moreover, this partnership
could potentially be detrimental to the NFL’s reputation; as well the partnership will be in many
ways rendered ineffective because of Twitter’s difficult user interface making it unappealing to
users which is leading its users to other social media platforms.
The alternative to this partnership, which would be more effective and powerful, would
be to enter this deal with Instagram. A rival of Twitter, Instagram has maintained a strong user
population on a user-friendly platform that continues to attract users and is projected to grow
within the next year alone. Considering the current and projected financial success of Instagram,
this analysis will recommend that the NFL move forward with Instagram instead of Twitter as its
partner.
INTRODUCTION
Social media is one of the leading forces in today’s world of advertisement and
marketing. The messages are short and simple; the impact is very large and instantaneous. The
National Football League (NFL) has begun considering a two-year agreement with Twitter and
its brands to promote the NFL and NFL supported content within its platform. After having
previously worked with Twitter on a one-year basis, this extended partnership is a new
development altogether. In this analysis, the background of this case, considering both entities’
benefits and costs associated with this partnership will be discussed. Then, there will be an
examination of this background information. This examination will include understanding how
Twitter’s current financial state has led to a decline in Twitter’s value as a company. Moreover,
the examination of these facts will include Twitter’s failure in renovating and evolving to
