Why the NFL Struggles to Attract Female Fans

Authored by Scott Goldberg on December 5, 2006 - 3:10am.

At the Reuters Media Summit in New York last week, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell discussed the importance of attracting more female fans, though no specific strategies were offered. "It's a very big initiative," he said. "(Women) fans want to be treated as real fans because they love the game and they understand the game and they want to have the opportunity to experience the game just as anyone else does."

There is good reason for the NFL to emphasize the importance of a female audience to its bottom line. NASCAR has managed to attract a sizeable female following of its own – 42% of the fan base, according to an ESPN poll conducted over 12 months. And according to a Nielsen Media Research figure from 2003, the NFL could only claim 33% of its audience as female.

So why has NASCAR succeeded where the NFL has failed? According to Emily Murphy of USA Today, “Women say they are drawn to NASCAR because of the charismatic drivers and family-friendly atmosphere. Like men, they are attracted to speed and the excitement that permeates race day.”

The NFL certainly boasts its share of charismatic characters, though there’s little doubt the negative off-field news which hovers over the league like L.A.’s pollution has played a part in turning away women, especially those with children. But that doesn’t explain the entire problem.

It’s also unfair to say that women can’t relate to football, whereas the concept of driving a car at insane speeds falls closer to home. John Clayton, a reporter with ESPN, sure doesn’t look like someone who has ever played football, yet his knowledge and passion for the game is almost worrisome. Who doesn’t understand the concept of 300-pound human beings, essentially built like SUVs, crashing into each other at Olympic sprinter speeds? And who doesn’t like that? After all, the prospect (and yes, sadly, the hope) for car wrecks is at least a part of the appeal of NASCAR.

"What draws people to NASCAR is the experience of the sport, following the teams and the drivers, and that's the part people identify with and relate to," said Tim Calkins, clinical associate professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "People immerse themselves in the culture of NASCAR, and it comes to define a little bit of who they are.” Fine. But doesn’t the same idea apply to the NFL?

Alternatively, is the NFL fan culture too masculine? And is it possible for the NFL to accomplish its goal of integrating women without compromising its male audience? I, for one, believe it is. Loyalty to one’s football team has become larger than the sport itself, and the job the league has done in creating competitive parity, thus allowing fans of every team to believe they have a shot to win the Super Bowl in any given year, has created a dedication that goes well beyond gender.

So what’s the NFL’s problem? What is it failing to do? Goodell said that women want marketing tilted more toward their interests, but don’t want to be treated differently.

During Fox’s broadcast of the Dallas Cowboys vs. the New York Giants game Sunday, I kept a tally of the commercials and broke it down into two categories: Commercials targeted to males only, and those intended to appeal to both genders (there were not, to no surprise, any commercials targeted entirely to females). I found that 51% of the commercials fit the male-only category. These included the Cougar Mellencamp "Our Country" Chevy commercials paying homage to white males hunting, logging, doing manual labor, attending boyscout meetings, building fences in the snow, herding cattle, and fitting every other stereotype Chevy could think of for middle America. Others included the Carls’ Jr. Philly Cheesesteak-burger commercial with two inaudible gents whistling at passing females while they discuss the merits of the new creation; a slew of Nissan truck commercials; and a nauseating number of Peyton Manning ads (I counted these as male-only commercials because, according to the results of my side survey, no females outside of Indianapolis view Peyton Manning as a sex symbol, with the majority even describing him as "gross" ... more on that shortly).

And 51% isn’t bad. But of the other 49%, about 20% were family Christmas commercials. In other words, games advertised in, say, September or January are likely to have a smaller percentage of commercials targeted to both genders because of the lack of a shopping initiative.

Yet Goodell said that sales of NFL merchandise targeted to women has increased recently. "It has probably been our biggest growth area over the last several years," he said. And he’s right. According to a USA Today report, sales of NFL women’s gear comprised 15% of the $3.4 billion total merchandise sales for the 2005 season, compared to 3% in 2004. But does that signify a growing female loyalty to the sport as well? And is 15% a number to be proud of when already 33% of your audience is female?

At least part of the problem in attracting women is the sport itself, which has no female league of its own. There are women that play football, as has been widely reported this season with the brother-sister relationship of New York Jets rookie lineman Nick Mangold and his high school sister Holley, who also plays lineman. The University of Colorado and University of New Mexico football teams had a female kicker, Katie Hnida, on their rosters, but she became the first female to play Division 1 football in 1999. Sports like NASCAR, which has female drivers, or soccer, basketball, hockey, and golf, which have professional women’s leagues, would seem to attract a larger female audience based on the equality of the sport alone. Even baseball has women’s softball, with a collegiate league and Olympic competition, as its sibling sport. How can the NFL expect women to increase their interest in a sport they cannot currently play beyond the casual flag football intramural games on college campuses? What is the incentive for learning the game?

On the other hand, if you attend a college football game or watch it on television, you’ll find the audience decidedly less male-dominated than its NFL counterpart. One obvious explanation is that college football fans are not merely fans of the sport; they are loyal to the cause of their school. Why, then, does the same not translate to the NFL?

Perhaps that is the root of the NFL’s problem. The focus should not be so much on educating women about the intricacies of the game as it should be on garnering support for a single team and its effort to win the championship. Part of the women’s NFL merchandise push is a drive to wed fan interest in apparel with team loyalty. But fan loyalty is a difficult thing for the NFL to capture in the modern era. Free agency has given fans the impression that players could care less about the jersey they wear so long as their paycheck is as large as possible. Part of the allure of college football is the fact that the vast majority of the athletes (we hope) chose the school and play for free.

One lesson the NFL might consider stealing from NASCAR can be seen in the statement of a female fan in a Sport Management Research Institute article. "There's a lot of great-looking guys in NASCAR," said fan Gayle Brackett. The article goes on to explain that many NASCAR commercials don’t portray the drivers as adrenaline-fueled macho men, but as sex symbols. And as I said, with Peyton Manning as the NFL’s current poster boy, it seems the emphasis on creating sex symbols for the female audience is a low priority. Perhaps Goodell should start from there.

Scott Goldberg

Related Links:
www.nfl.com
www.nascar.com