The AAF and Social Marketing: A New Beginning

Saturday February 9th marked the beginning of a new football league to help cure the American football hangover called The Alliance of American Football. This new startup league consists of NFL misfits and and castaways that will play during the spring offseason of the NFL. The leagues inaugural games consisted of the San Diego Fleet visiting the San Antonio Commanders, and the Atlanta Legends visiting the Orlando Apollos. According to CBS.com, "both games averaged more than 2.9 million viewers for the 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. time slot." (CBS.com).

The major challenge for this startup league, as with any startup business is gaining a following. The Alliance of American Football needed to get creative in how they would gain a viewership, and through innovative social marketing through social media

and an engaging app, they were able to out rate the NBA games on February 9th.

David Livingston, the president of the Atlanta based team pointed out one of the opportunities the league could attack in an interview with Forbes. "'Every fan has a smartphone and they are used to engaging with that device during the game, whether they are at the stadium or at home. Our proprietary app includes fantasy elements and encourages engagement.'" (Forbes.com). This new app gives fans an experience the NFL doesn't provide. Not only does the app allow fans to watch the game get diagrammed play by play, buy tickets for games and have access to each fans team shop, it allows fans to guess what plays will happen and earn points, making watching the games a game in it of itself.  Another opportunity The Alliance has jumped on is the legalization of sports betting in the United States. The app allows fans to bet in game on their teams and games they follow, which is an attracting feature to today's modern sports fan.

Football fans are incredibly engaged on social media, and the Alliance has taken advantage of the new form of marketing that is Twitter and Instagram. Their twitter account features retweets from every team which outlines the highlights of each team from their games as well as pictures of results for each game. One of the best things they do is only include pictures and videos which are easiest to captivate audiences and increase engagement within the fan bases. According to Mediatech.com, "Fans that watch sports-related videos have positive purchase intent to buy from brands that use social influencers." The Alliance of American Football has utilized the first part of that, by posting almost exclusively videos and pictures. If the league hopes to continue their success and viewership, they must start to include social media influencers into their social media platforms. That will allow fans to become more engaged and more willing to purchase merchandise and tickets for their respective favorite teams.

Two weeks into the season the Alliance is on the right track to becoming a prominent league and gaining a significant following. Their app is something different and modern for their fans which will allow football fans to engage in their favorite game in a new way. Social Media is the new popular form of advertising, and the Alliance needs to continue on the same track if they hope to keep up the success they have had. Separating them from the NFL is athlete recognition, and to supplement that factor they must incorporate influencers to help build their brand.