NFL Teams up With TikTok to Reach Young and International Audiences

With its 100th season about to kick off, the National Football League (NFL) and Chinese short video platform TikTok, announced today a new multi-year partnership to bring NFL’s exciting experience to TikTok’s global community, combining the passion surrounding football with the fast-growing digital platform.

Sports is a popular category on TikTok and the NFL isn’t the first sports organization to team up with the short-video platform. Wimbledon and the NBA have both previously worked with TikTok to promote their games. It has now been a year since TikTok made its US debut, and partnerships with major brands enable it to gain a stronger foothold outside of China.

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“Partnering with TikTok is a natural extension of our media strategy,” said Blake Stuchin, Vice President, Digital Media Business Development for the NFL. “The platform reaches a fast-growing global audience of NFL fans and future fans. The NFL programming and hashtag challenges are a perfect way to kick off the NFL’s 100th season — with fun, new content that will entertain fans and invites them to celebrate and experience their NFL fandom in a way that’s authentic to the unique experience of TikTok.”

The partnership includes the launch of an official NFL account on the video platform, where NFL will be sharing highlights and behind-the-scenes footage. The account is part of a strategy to court a younger audience, as well as to use the platform’s reach to open up the sport to a global audience.

Additionally, NFL and TikTok will partner around a series of NFL-themed hashtag challenges, inviting members of the TikTok community to engage. Currently, the NFL is running a #WeReady hashtag challenge, asking TikTok users to create videos showing which teams they’re rooting for.

TikTok will also have a presence at Thursday’s NFL kickoff game in Chicago’s Soldier Field, and attendees will be able to create NFL-themed TikTok videos.