The NFL Achieves The Impossible With Super Bowl LVIII

Although the ‘best ad’ would be the obvious communications call-out, we wanted to celebrate something else about Super Bowl LVIII: the whole thing.

The communications and marketing team at the National Football League (NFL) managed to achieve the impossible on Sunday night, enabling America to come together, forget about our differences, and focus on an evening of great entertainment.

Coming into the final, so many other narratives aside from the sport were taking media attention. Brands were busy running their campaigns, Las Vegas airport had no more space for private jets, and a certain singer was either bringing a whole new fan base to the sport or was about to change the course of the 2024 US Presidential Elections and quite possibly both. In the end, it was a nail-biting game and one that cements the NFL’s place as the world’s most valuable sports league and the Super Bowl as an event that increasingly seems as significant as Thanksgiving for bringing people together. Over the years, the NFL has gotten smarter and better at the integration of sports and entertainment. This year, they had to contend with a gatecrasher at the party: politics. Against the backdrop of our fervent political atmosphere, it would have been easy for the significance of the game to have been hijacked by any number of conspiracy theories and partisan talking points. However, the NFL stuck to what was important for the fans: delivering a truly world-class entertainment experience.

Kudos to the communications team at the NFL; you're delivered a welcome night off.

(Disclaimer: NFL is not a Perceptual Advisors LLC client)