The NFL is aware of a key component driving its business: Female fans. In recent years, the league has seen women grow to become over 44 percent of its fan base, with 60 percent of females over the age of 12 identifying themselves as NFL fans. Last season, 80 million women watched NFL games and roughly 310,000 women attended NFL games each weekend. Recognizing womens interest in the NFL, the league has sought to find new ways to cultivate female fans passion for the game. One of the most significant things that the NFL has done recently to accomplish this, is overhauling its womens apparel strategy.
In the last few years, the NFL has moved away from a pink-it-and-shrink it approach to womens apparel to develop a womens apparel line featuring items including Victorias Secret loungewear, Nike activewear and couture Marchesa tops. The items are largely made in teams colors and made to fit womens bodies. Along with clothing, the collection also includes watches, boots and accessories. In the evolution of its womens apparel strategy, the NFL has sought to help women define themselves as fans while also providing them apparel options suiting their personalities better than pink, undersized mens shirts.
In shifting gears in its womens apparel approach, the NFL relied heavily upon its own research. We looked at how the business was trending over the 7 to 8 years we had been in the business. We saw that with every move we made, the business would move. We knew there was a market for this, said Rhiannon Madden, the NFLs Director of Apparel. Along with Madden, the NFLs research into the womens apparel market was heavily driven by female NFL employees. Leading the helm of the NFLs womens apparel revolution were four women with a variety of backgrounds in fashion and business: Madden, NFL Vice President of Apparel Tracey Bleczinski, NFL Vice President of Retail Strategy Natara Holloway, and NFL Director of Consumer Products Johanna Paretzky. Our department has quite a few women in it, who knew we would buy certain things as we were working on them. Luckily, we had a boss who believed in us and knew that he could put his trust in us, said Madden.
The NFLs research and subsequent approach have proven to be successful. Last year, the NFL brought in $3.2 billion from sales of its consumer products. While the league does not specify what percentage womens apparel sales contributed to that amount, one can assume it was a significant portion given the efforts the NFL has taken to revamp its womens apparel strategy. According to Bleczinski, the NFL has . . . had womens products for over a decade. As the business grew and we became more sophisticated with it and talked to our female fans and did research, we found that female fans dont just want to wear pink. They want team colors and designs that fit them. As we started cater to our female fans from a licensing perspective, the business started taking off.