NFL and Coach Stilo
The Idea
American football is the most popular sport in the US, but in the rest of the world, it’s not so popular. But the National Football League, the sport’s governing body, wants to change that and has its eyes set on becoming a top 5 sport in the UK, according to the Bloomberg article. To help this aim, there’s an NFL match this weekend, one of the standard league fixtures, taking place in Wembley, between New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers. It’s apparently sold 86,000 tickets.
The issue with the game for many is its complexity – it took me a long time to realise that they change all the people on the pitch between offence and defence (that’s a consequence of them always cutting to commercials though). To help get explain the game, the NFL have launched a great site this week to explain it.
Through the heavy use of flash and video, Coach Stilo takes you through the game, the positions and the plays, with help from current players. The site has a lot of information about the sport, well presented with a funny script.
Screenshot from site
What I think
If you have a good enough net connection and the time, this is a superb site, full of information presented in an endearing way. It’s not for a quick casual look in the middle of the game as you have a question. The consequence of this is that you will probably have a bit of interest in the sport before you work your way through all the video.
It’s lushly put together, with fun characters and good guest parts from the players, plus the added value of having to interact and make some decisions as you go along. It’s got games in there, plus a contest. You play the part of a rookie player, getting the game explained. I spent far longer on the site then expected, wondering what was going to happen next. So grab some time and explore – and you could win tickets to the next Superbowl in Tampa Bay, Florida
The Pitch
Nicely done, Jim had obviously read my blog and my notes about pitches. It cut through the usual stuff I get and made sure I wrote about it this weekend.
Very innovative approach to teaching the sport, rather than a rules-based angle — I’ll be interested to see if it works. The rules in American football are so complicated, so I guess the NFL wanted to try something different.
Very good video but why try to always expand the sports across the world. Its what make each place unique. American Footbal for Americans and Soccer for the rest of the world. Why try to push into new places were it wont have a cultural significance? I like them to be seperate