The NFL as a whole and the New York Jets in par­tic­u­lar are going through a bit of a rough patch image-wise this sea­son. The good news for the league, team and relat­ed spon­sors is that foot­ball fans are will­ing to spend mon­ey, but the poten­tial­ly bad news is that these fans are opin­ion­at­ed and out­spo­ken. That means it’s imper­a­tive brands and spon­sors real­ize pas­sion­ate fans have strong emo­tions and they can’t aban­don ship when times are tough. Instead, they will over­come adver­si­ty in tough times if they have good motives, are trans­par­ent, and lis­ten to feed­back.

Pas­sion­ate fans are a spe­cial breed, whether it’s for com­ic books, TV shows, or sports. And of the most pas­sion­ate fans of the lat­ter, New York sports fans may be in a league all of their own.

Per­haps no one knows this bet­ter than Seth Rabi­nowitz, senior vice pres­i­dent of mar­ket­ing and fan engage­ment for the New York Jets, who spoke recent­ly dur­ing an Adver­tis­ing Week pan­el.

Accord­ing to Rabi­nowitz, “If you sched­ule your wed­ding around [an event] or have a tat­too, it’s a good indi­ca­tion you might be a super fan.”

Super fans are the fans that make their pas­sion a cen­tral part of their lives and use it to help iden­ti­fy who they are, he added. It’s a year-long com­mit­ment for these fans and so the Jets, in turn, must also make sure they have plen­ty of events and con­tent in the off­sea­son.

But that’s not all. These fans are known for the inten­si­ty of their emo­tions and, per Rabi­nowitz, brands must be pre­pared to han­dle both the pos­i­tive and the neg­a­tive.

“You have to be care­ful,” Rabi­nowitz said. “[Fans will scream] about what they don’t like. If you vio­late their trust, they will let you know.”

The Jets, like many brands, want to reward these most pas­sion­ate brand advo­cates.

That means this sea­son, for exam­ple, the Jets have intro­duced Jets Rewards, or what Rabi­nowitz described as a “fre­quent attendee pro­gram” for sea­son tick­et hold­ers. Par­tic­i­pants receive an RFID-enabled card they can wear or put in their wal­lets to receive points for game atten­dance that can be redeemed for perks like going out on to the field or even fly­ing with the team to away games.

“It was a leap of faith for us,” Rabi­nowitz said. “It required a sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial and oper­a­tional invest­ment.”

Oth­er fan rewards include an inau­gur­al Jets cruise with for­mer and cur­rent play­ers to the Bahamas in March.

“A few oth­er teams have done it, so we’re not wild­ly div­ing into it,” Rabi­nowitz said. “We did our due dili­gence, so we will see. With the real­ly loy­al cus­tomers, if you’re trans­par­ent and fess up and lis­ten to feed­back, you’re OK. They give you the ben­e­fit of the doubt as long as your motives are good.”

And, com­ing from a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for the Jets, that’s say­ing some­thing. This sea­son in par­tic­u­lar, the Jets specif­i­cal­ly and the NFL as a whole have test­ed fan loy­al­ty with big loss­es and major scan­dals. So how do brands like these – or their spon­sors – recov­er and/or reas­sure those super fans?

For one thing, brands must accen­tu­ate the pos­i­tive, Rabi­nowitz says.

With a los­ing record through Octo­ber 5, he says it’s all about focus­ing on the game­time expe­ri­ence as a whole and “being with friends and fam­i­ly. It’s an escape from exis­tence, trou­bles, and chal­lenges. We try to remind them of that.” It also means fram­ing a 1‑and‑4 record in a pos­i­tive light.

“I say the sea­son is still young,” Rabi­nowitz said. “There are ways to address it…years from now, you don’t remem­ber the score, but you do remem­ber the epic tail­gate par­ty and being with your dad or grand­pa or being on the video board or going down to the side­line.”

And when the going gets tough, brands can’t dis­en­gage, Rabi­nowitz said.

“In the NFL the last few weeks, part­ners get scared some­times when [emo­tion] runs to neg­a­tive – and some­times with good rea­son,” Rabi­nowitz said, allud­ing to domes­tic vio­lence cas­es from play­ers like Ray Rice, Adri­an Peter­son, and Daryl Wash­ing­ton. “But neg­a­tive emo­tion doesn’t mean the end of the rela­tion­ship. Some­times it’s an even more intense form of engage­ment. You have to think you can sur­vive some heavy incom­ing fire around neg­a­tive [emo­tion]. If you just dis­en­gage, it’s hard to come back.”

So far, some spon­sors, like hotel brand Radis­son, have dis­en­gaged. On Sep­tem­ber 15, Radis­son announced it was pulling its spon­sor­ship of the Min­neso­ta Vikings “while we eval­u­ate the facts and cir­cum­stances.”

Most league spon­sors, how­ev­er, have adopt­ed more of a wait-and-see approach, issu­ing state­ments reflect­ing their dis­ap­proval. That includes McDonald’s and Visa, as well as Anheuser-Busch, which said, “We are not yet sat­is­fied with the league’s han­dling of behav­iors that so clear­ly go against our own com­pa­ny cul­ture and moral code. We have shared our con­cerns and expec­ta­tions with the league.”

The NFL has respond­ed in part by nam­ing mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing exec­u­tive Dawn Hud­son its new chief mar­ket­ing offi­cer.

Only time will tell whether these moves are enough to prompt change and/or reas­sure foot­ball fans.

In fact, pan­el mod­er­a­tor Rus­sell Sapien­za, enter­tain­ment, media and com­mu­ni­ca­tions advi­so­ry part­ner at PwC, said he thought a great study next year will be one that looks at the brands that stood with the NFL ver­sus those that ran away.

“You have to be ready for it,” Rabi­nowitz said of fan emo­tion. “And the inten­si­ty runs so hot.”

What else do you think brands can do to reas­sure fans dur­ing trou­bled times?