It’s the most wonderful time of the year. Not the holidays, although I love that time, too. Instead, football season kicked off last week.
Gone is preseason in the NFL, and gone is that wacky week zero that someone trying to be clever dubbed for the first week of college football. Most likely those folks on the sports channels. Tsk, tsk.
No matter, the boys of fall are back in full force. No need to debate the winners and losers from the season starts, but what is fun to see is a continuing growing focus on how these athletes recover during the days between games.
Thanks, in part to an ongoing partnership between Sleep Number and the NFL, game weekends are peppered with commercials about Dak (as well as other players) and his preference for the brand’s adjustable mattress, as well as that of other players in the game. Now that the Dallas Cowboys’ QB just landed himself at the top of the league’s highest-paid in history list with a four-year, $240 million contract, I doubt he’s in need of a gifted bed or the additional pitch dollars that may come along with the ads.
However, I digress, back to the new lineup of commercials, the partnership and the hype of sleep, wellness and recovery.
This year, the vertical sleep player has rolled out new messaging that leans into better sleep with your partner under the “Sleep Better Together” campaign. One spot includes Los Angeles Rams’ quarterback Matthew Stafford and his wife Kelly touting their sleep preference: One likes it hot, the other cool, for example.
The Rams franchise, the retailer said, invested in 150 Sleep Number smart beds for its players, coaches and trainers during training camp this year, and 99% of the team’s players have Sleep Number beds at home.
Other deals under the partnership include teaming up with brothers Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs and Jason Kelce, former center for the Philadelphia Eagles. The Kelce brothers discuss their Sleep Number beds on their “New Heights” podcast.
Other players in the company’s social media campaign to pitch the beds include Creed Humphrey of the Kansas City Chiefs and Minnesota Viking Aaron Jones.
The Sleep Number partnership with the NFL isn’t new. The retailer struck its first deal with the league in 2018 and says 80% of professional football players sleep on one of its beds.
Drilling down, it’s a smart marketing strategy. Last year, regular season NFL games averaged 17.9 million viewers. That’s tied for the second highest since averages were first tracked in 1995. The Super Bowl in February between the Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers drew 123.7 million viewers, setting a new record as the Chiefs defeated the 49ers.
The fan base is almost split between the genders: 54% are men and 46% women. That’s a pretty good audience for hawking a mattress or a sleep system.
As an observer of both the sport and the mattress business, it’s fascinating to see the worlds collide in a way that promotes health and wellness and the role sleep plays in making us perform better in our personal lives and our jobs.
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