The New York Jets On Overcoming Adversity During Tough Times

The NFL’s New York Jets have had a rough start this sea­son, but the team is try­ing to accen­tu­ate the pos­i­tive, invest­ing in rewards for their brand advo­cates.

Lisa Lacy By Lisa Lacy. Join the discussion » 0 comments

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?

Lisa Lacy

Written by Lisa Lacy

Lisa is a senior features writer for Inked. She also previously covered digital marketing for Incisive Media. Her background includes editorial positions at Dow Jones, the Financial Times, the Huffington Post, AOL, Amazon, Hearst, Martha Stewart Living and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

Inked is published by Linkdex, the SEO platform of choice for professional marketers.

Discover why brands and agencies choose Linkdex

  • Get started fast with easy onboarding & training
  • Import and connect data from other platforms
  • Scale with your business, websites and markets
  • Up-skill teams with training & accreditation
  • Build workflows with tasks, reporting and alerts

Get a free induction and experience of Linkdex.

Just fill out this form, and one of our team members will get in touch to arrange your own, personalized demo.