NFL International & Whistle Sports Pact on Reality Sports Competition Series “Game Recognize Game”
Cross-sports competitions are becoming a trend. Just this past weekend boxer Floyd Mayweather was pit against UFC fighter Colin McGregor, to McGregors defeat. And now, Whistle Sports and NFL International are teaming on a new reality sports competition series that matches NFL players like JJ Watt and international soccer stars like Victor Lindelof. Athletes in the series will compete head to head in a sequence of American and European football challenges. Set to premiere later this week, all four episodes of “Game Recognize Game” will air on Whistle Sports YouTube and Facebook channels. Ancillary video will also air on NFL’s social channels and will be promoted by both the teams and the players across Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.
“This is a great example of the power of what Whistle Sports and the NFL can do together,” said Whistle co-founder and President Jeff Urban, on the small series order. “Through our partnership, we expect to see more content like this as we lead into the 2017 season.” Over the course of the last year, Whistle Sports has ramped up its own production offering and even hired JJ Lalonde to lead its video efforts.
“We are excited to work with Whistle Sports, our NFL clubs and players, and teams from the English Premier League and their players, to create engaging content,” said NFL Vice President of International Marketing Henry Hodgson. “Collectively, we believe this series will appeal to sports fans consuming content on social media platforms around the world.”
This isn’t the first time NFL has tapped Whistle Sports for video — last year the two companies teamed on developing social-first video for NFL’s owned and operated channels, produced by Whistle Sports.
Currently, NFL is testing formats with a variety of digital players across its owned and operated sites including NFL.com and even live streaming rights for it’s Thursday game, which Amazon grabbed rights to earlier this year.
