Queue And A

NFL Network Steps Up Its Twitter Video Presence with Weekday ‘#NFLBlitz’ Show

By Scott Porch @scottporch
Published Sep. 7, 2017, 1:15 p.m. ET

The NFL has an almost unfathomably large social-media presence — 10 million followers on Instagram, 16.5 million on Facebook, 24 million on Twitter — so it’s no surprise that the league’s NFL Network is going to fans where the are for its newest video venture.

The league’s #NFLBlitz show, which airs Mondays through Thursdays at nfl.twitter.com and on Twitter’s TV app for iOS, Android, Roku and other platforms, has an even bigger reach than its @NFL following when you account for the 32 teams and hundreds of players that have their own active Twitter presence.

Since premiering last week, #NFLBlitz has interviewed players like Miami Dolphins safety Michael Thomas (@Michael31Thomas) and Oakland Raiders punter Marquette King (@Marquette King), who are both active on Twitter, in hopes of growing the show organically. With the NFL regular season beginning tonight and a full slate of games coming this weekend, #NFLBlitz should have plenty of trending stories to chase.

Decider sat down with Catherine Chan-Smith, director for social integration for the NFL and a longtime NFL Network producer, to talk about the show.

DECIDER: You’ve been live-casting Mondays through Thursdays. Are you adding components now that the regular season is starting?

CATHERINE CHAN-SMITH: We will add a Sunday show. We’re still fine-tuning that, but I think it will be a pregame show to try and hit viewers going into kickoff.

What kind of adjustments and figuring out have you gone through since you started last week?

It’s so unlike different than anything else we’ve done here because it’s our first live-streamed show. The actual production part isn’t that different that what we’ve been doing on other shows, but we’ve really been working the last four or five weeks to condition ourselves to being on Twitter because the audience and the platform is so different than being on NFL Network. We’re approaching everything from trying to capture an audience using mobile devices, and we’re trying to capture attention when there are so many other content options available to people.

The show is only available live; you’re not stocking episodes to be available on demand. Will that change at some point?

Right now we’re live at 7 p.m. Eastern. We’ll post highlights from the show on NFL Network’s social channels, so there will be some things you’ll be able to watch VOD.

Is the show live to tape, or is it actually live as we’re seeing it?

It’s live live. We’re not pre-taping anything.

Are you reacting to questions and comments you see on the #NFLBlitz hashtag while you’re live? Are you saving up comments from the previous 24 hours?

We’re doing both. We have the ability to interact live and our window is so short — it’s a half-hour show — that the goal is very much to engage and interact with the live audience. We are also curating over the last 24 hours for questions and topics, so it’s a hybrid of both approaches.

How quickly are you reacting to things happening in real time?

Last Thursday was a good example. Within 10 minutes of the Broncos posting Von Miller’s arrival at the stadium for a preseason game, we turned that around and had it on #NFLBlitz. Joe Haden was on the field and taped a message that the Steelers posted, and we had that on the show before the Steelers kicked off. As soon as there is content that has a newsworthy component, we can turn that around quickly and get it on the air. And a lot of clubs are players are interacting directly with the show.

#NFLBlitz can do a live remote practically anywhere there’s an internet connection, which puts players in reach from their own living rooms.NFL Network

What will the show’s format be during the season? Will you have particular segments on certain days, or will be be more open-ended?

We want to have a guest player on the show at least three time a week. On Thursdays in particular, we want to have a player interview leading into the Thursday night game. We want to talk about what’s trending, have other guests like superfans or celebrities, and we’ll leverage other NFL Network talent and analysts. We want to give guests a casual, un-stuffy platform to come on and talk about trending topics.

You’ve had a mix of talking to players, segments on the preseason games and segments on fantasy football. Will that be the same basic mix for the regular season?

Definitely, yes. Those will be the regular components of the show.

Are you approaching #NFLBlitz as an extension of NFL Network’s brand and the coverage you’re already doing, or is this more of its own thing?

As an NFL show there are going to be similar components, but we’re really approaching #NFLBlitz as its own thing. The way the audience is consuming it is different, so the approach is different.

I’m sure it’s early to have much data and I’m sure you’re viewing will pick up with the season starting, but do you have a sense yet whether it will become appointment viewing for fans or more something that people will come across if they’re already online?

As you said, it’s too early for us to have a lot of data. I will say that the first episode of the show trended on Twitter organically, and I think we’ll learn more as we produce more shows and raise awareness that we’re on Twitter.

Have you been promoting the show primarily with your Twitter presence?

We use @NFL, @NFLNetwork and other accounts on multiple platforms, and we push out the link several times a day. Our talent has also been promoting the show.

You’re running 30-second ad spots one spot at a time during the show, which has been tolerable in the episodes I’ve seen.

You’ve probably seen the DiGiorno Pizza ads! On a show like this you monetize with ad breaks, and that 30 seconds goes by very fast on the production side for a live show. We’re hoping the will be pretty manageable for viewers and get us right into the next segment.

Do you have much sense from videos you’ve done on Twitter and other platforms what a conservative estimate for daily viewers will be once you’re into the season?

Not really. Hopefully, we’ll have a better idea about that in a month or so.

Are you doing things like #NFLBlitz on other platforms?

There’s not anything else quite like this, but we’re doing shows on other platforms. We’re the only professional sports league that has a Snapchat channel, and we’re producing content for that.

You started at NFL Network as a producer and have been there for a while, right?

I was one of the originals who helped launch NFL Network back in 2003. It’s a completely different company now from when we started. We launched in Week 9 of that season, and I can remember being in rehearsals during those early weeks and asking my producer, “How can we not launch in Week 1.” He said, “When this is a success, no one will remember that we launched in the middle of the season.” He was so right. I’m really proud of how far we’ve come.

When do you feel like NFL Network turned the corner as a news organization that has its own reputation that was distinct from the NFL?

We don’t call ourselves a news organization. We’re a football programming network. I may be biased here, but I think we were legitimate from Day 1. We were covering football in a non-partisan, non-biased way from the beginning. Even before we started broadcasting our first package of NFL games, we were producing quality content from a news and entertainment perspective.

How will you handle news like a potential coaching change or news of a player arrest that may cast a team or a player in a negative light? Are those things you’ll talk about?

We would cover those the same way NFL Network has always covered those things. We report news and information. We’ll rely on reporting from our National Insiders like Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet). Fans can send in their opinions on things, and we’ll provide a representation of that. I can tell you from being at the NFL Network from the beginning that we’ve never shied away from news and don’t sugar-coat unflattering news.

The reach of the teams and the individual players on Twitter is extremely large. Have you seen much indication yet whether players will adopt #NFLBlitz — watch, tweet at it, want to come on the show?

We’ve had a number of players on the show already who were very excited to be involved. Marquette King from the Oakland Raiders was on the show and told me before we went on the air that it was really exciting to be going live on this platform. There are a lot of players who see the reach of social media and view it as a game-changer.

Scott Porch writes about the streaming-media industry for Decider and is also a contributing writer for Playboy. You can follow him on Twitter @ScottPorch.