For those of us who grew up before the internet flattened everything into clips and feeds, NFL Films felt almost magical. It was hypnotic. Seductive. Myth-building in the purest sense. You didn’t have to love football to fall under its spell. You just had to watch.
An NFL Films documentary could make you care about teams you’d never seen play, players you’d never heard of, seasons that ended decades before you were born. It made football feel important in a way that went far beyond the game itself.
That feeling has been on my mind lately as the season ends.
I’ve been spending time with a friend who works as a content strategist, and our conversations keep circling the same reality: most brands know they need to behave like media companies, but very few actually do. Some dabble. Some commission a campaign here or there. Some think hiring a couple of creators is enough to check the box. But the brands that are winning aren’t treating content as decoration. They’re being aggressive. They’re…
