No mat­ter how many hor­ri­ble head­lines emerge from the NFL – cheat­ing, vio­lence, abuse, racism, and brain dam­age among them – the league itself comes out unscathed, time and time again, like a ver­i­ta­ble Teflon Don of pro­fes­sion­al sports. What’s their secret?

The Nation­al Foot­ball League and its teams not only sur­vive scan­dals, they thrive despite them.

NFL spon­sor­ship grew last year, report­ed­ly up 7.8 per­cent to $1.2 bil­lion. The NFL’s female fan base also grew despite numer­ous domes­tic abuse sto­ry­lines.

Even some of the most scan­dal-plagued teams – think: the Wash­ing­ton Red­skins, New York Jets and New Eng­land Patri­ots – rank above aver­age in terms of spon­sor­ship rev­enue, accord­ing to the IEG. On top of that, brand engage­ment and cus­tomer loy­al­ty research con­sul­tan­cy Brand Keys recent­ly ranked the Deflate­gate-plagued Patri­ots #1 in terms of fan loy­al­ty.

“[The NFL has] had their fair share of chal­lenges and con­tro­ver­sies and sto­ries that might have been dev­as­tat­ing to most busi­ness­es, but they seem to have come out not just OK, but actu­al­ly thriv­ing,” said Vas­silis Dalakas, pro­fes­sor of mar­ket­ing at Cal State San Mar­cos and who sup­ports the Green Bay Pack­ers. “It seems the NFL is able to han­dle all of that and over­come it quite well.”

There are many rea­sons for this, includ­ing the sheer num­ber of par­ties involved, which means, to a degree, blame is spread out among play­ers, teams, the league and the media.

But it’s also because many of these scan­dals – Plaxi­co Bur­ress shoot­ing him­self in the leg at a night­club or Adri­an Peter­son beat­ing his son, for exam­ple – aren’t tech­ni­cal­ly foot­ball-relat­ed and fans care about foot­ball, said Bian­ca Lee, founder of White Rose Mar­ket­ing Solu­tions and a Pitts­burgh Steel­ers fan who is con­tem­plat­ing switch­ing alle­giance to the Jets. What’s more, foot­ball play­ers have a short­er tenure than oth­er ath­letes, so their prob­lems often retire when they do, she said.

And, sim­ply put, sports fans are not known for being par­tic­u­lar­ly ratio­nal – espe­cial­ly when their favorite team is involved, or a hat­ed rival.

“I’ve done lots of research on sports fan­dom and one thing con­sis­tent is that the more iden­ti­fied the fan is – the more diehard they are – the less objec­tive that fan is,” Dalakas said. “The glass­es a diehard fan wears always look at the world in a way that is favor­able to the team they are root­ing for and unfa­vor­able to their rivals.”

While experts agree the NFL isn’t scan­dal proof per se – and a big enough issue could in fact even­tu­al­ly severe­ly dam­age its rep­u­ta­tion – the league is in an envi­able posi­tion with an extreme­ly for­giv­ing fan base.

So what has the NFL and its indi­vid­ual teams fig­ured out about fan rela­tions that mar­keters should know?

There are three pil­lars to the NFL’s suc­cess.

Pillar 1: Passion

The NFL has a prod­uct its fans can’t live with­out – so much so that it’s real­ly the only thing con­sumers are still will­ing to watch on live TV.

“The NFL is one of most suc­cess­ful TV fran­chis­es in the his­to­ry of TV, which means con­sumers still want to watch, which means adver­tis­ers still want to pay for it, which means TV sta­tions still want to car­ry it,” said Bruce Clark, mar­ket­ing pro­fes­sor at the D’Amore-McKim School of Busi­ness at North­east­ern Uni­ver­si­ty, who says he fol­lows the Patri­ots because he lives in Boston, but wouldn’t describe him­self as a fan.

As the say­ing goes, love is blind.

This means con­sumers are more than will­ing to over­look, ignore, down­play, for­give, and explain away trans­gres­sions that might oth­er­wise tar­nish their beloved team and pas­time.

Dalakas says the clos­est par­al­lel to a brand with a com­pa­ra­ble cult fol­low­ing is Apple, which clear­ly boasts its own pas­sion­ate fan base.

“Thank­ful­ly for them, they have not had that kind of con­tro­ver­sy, but if they did, fans would be will­ing to over­look those trans­gres­sions because they love the prod­uct so much,” Dalakas said.

Eden Gillott Bowe, pres­i­dent of cri­sis and rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment firm Gillott Com­mu­ni­ca­tions, who says she is from LA, where they have a rep­u­ta­tion for root­ing for who­ev­er is win­ning, also places Apple in the same “untouch­able” cat­e­go­ry as the NFL.

“The pub­lic is so enthralled by cheer­ing their foot­ball teams and buy­ing their new iPhones that they’re hap­py to look the oth­er way despite cheat­ing, domes­tic abuse, and child labor,” she said. “Essen­tial­ly, build up enough of a cult-like fol­low­ing and peo­ple will turn a blind eye to a lot of wrong­do­ing.”

Con­sumers have a tremen­dous abil­i­ty to not notice the things they don’t want to see, Clark agreed.

“If you love foot­ball, you real­ly don’t want to notice that foot­ball might cause per­ma­nent brain dam­age to the play­ers. If you love foot­ball, you may not want to notice that the game has tremen­dous incen­tives for vio­lence,” Clark said. “So peo­ple have a tremen­dous abil­i­ty to not want to believe bad things about the things they like. They love the NFL, so they kind of just don’t pay atten­tion to things that are bad because they love it so much.”

This means strong brands that are well-loved can also get away with more than those with less pas­sion­ate con­sumers, Clark said. He point­ed to Ama­zon, which made head­lines recent­ly about how it treats its employ­ees.

“But the thing is, peo­ple love Ama­zon, so it’s ‘Don’t show me anoth­er bad arti­cle about Ama­zon,’” Clark said. “‘If I start to think about it, maybe I wouldn’t be able to shop there any­more.’ I think they feel the same way about the NFL.”

For his part, Geoff Cook, part­ner at brand­ing agency Base Design and who says his blood runs green for the Philadel­phia Eagles, point­ed to Face­book and its incred­i­ble pop­u­lar­i­ty that he says “encour­ages us to over­look the com­pa­ny’s sell­ing of our per­son­al infor­ma­tion for prof­it.”

Pillar 2: Community

The NFL knows there is tru­ly no ‘I’ in team and has come to rep­re­sent a fam­i­ly in a way for its devot­ed fans and that, Dalakas not­ed, is so impor­tant that even at the end of the most heart­break­ing of sea­sons when fans say they’re done with a giv­en team, they always inevitably come back. Most brands, how­ev­er, don’t have that lux­u­ry.

In oth­er words, while a diehard fan of the Seat­tle Sea­hawks might have been exas­per­at­ed as a result of prod­uct per­for­mance last year, he or she is far more like­ly to stick with the brand in ques­tion going into the new sea­son than if, say, a cell phone provider or cable com­pa­ny was­n’t meet­ing his or her expec­ta­tions, Dalakas said.

Brands, too, should strive to cul­ti­vate sim­i­lar com­mu­ni­ties in which con­sumers feel like fans.

“I think with social, there’s a huge, huge oppor­tu­ni­ty for brands to do that – to make you and me a part of the team,” Clark said. “The way I talk about a sports team with ‘we’ – I should feel the same way about my hotel, my air­line and my bank. The les­son every brand can learn is how to make con­sumers feel they are part of this and that we are part of their iden­ti­ty.”

Fos­ter­ing a loy­al com­mu­ni­ty is the key to a brand’s suc­cess, Cook said.

“The NFL has to its cred­it devel­oped a fanat­i­cal­ly devot­ed set of fans. They then encour­age them to inter­act with the brand in myr­i­ad ways, from attend­ing a game and watch­ing a game with friends to par­tic­i­pat­ing in Fan­ta­sy Foot­ball or even play­ing the game itself,” Cook said. “If today’s brand is increas­ing­ly about expe­ri­ence, it can be argued that the NFL is the most suc­cess­ful brand of our time.”

Pillar 3: Tradition

From kick­off in the first game of the sea­son to hoist­ing the Lom­bar­di tro­phy at the end of the Super Bowl, the NFL sea­son is rife with tra­di­tion. Indi­vid­ual teams, too, have their own tra­di­tions, from the Sea­hawks’ rais­ing the 12 Flag, to the Pack­ers’ Lam­beau Leap, and the Steel­ers’ Ter­ri­ble Tow­els.

Brands, too, should strive to cre­ate their own unmiss­able tra­di­tions, Clark said.

“Those kinds of traditions…are very pow­er­ful and one of the oth­er things sports can engen­der is mul­ti-gen­er­a­tion brand loy­al­ty,” Clark said. “If you grew up in a fam­i­ly and your par­ents are Pack­ers fans, in all like­li­hood, you are, too, and you think of fam­i­ly con­nec­tions and the things you grew up with and the things you shared.”

This means brands that cre­ate their own tra­di­tions have a com­pa­ra­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to inspire loy­al­ty for gen­er­a­tions.

Take, for exam­ple, the Macy’s Thanks­giv­ing Day Parade. This is an exam­ple of a brand that has cre­at­ed a tra­di­tion con­sumers watch each year, Clark said. Ama­zon has also cre­at­ed buzz around Cyber Mon­day and Prime Day as recur­ring dates to buy presents and/or get deals, he added.

Like the NFL sea­son, these brand­ed tra­di­tions are also reli­able, which yield even more cul­tur­al engage­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties on a pre­dictable sched­ule.

In addi­tion, Apple’s much-buzzed-out iPhone announce­ments have, in recent years, come in the first week of Sep­tem­ber, which could be its own poten­tial brand tra­di­tion in the mak­ing, Clark said.

There’s also a cer­tain spec­ta­cle in indi­vid­ual games, as well as through­out the course of the sea­son. Again, brands, like the NFL, should strive to cre­ate spec­ta­cles that con­sumers want to be a part of, Clark said.

“Look at Apple Stores. They are expe­ri­ences. They are cathe­drals of tech­nol­o­gy,” Clark said. “It’s a spec­ta­cle.”

What is your brand doing to score points with con­sumers and ensure your rep­u­ta­tion is scan­dal proof?