How fashion became a new revenue channel for the NFL

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As Week Nine of the 2025 NFL season gets underway, there’s no denying the reach of American football. Whether you’re a devoted Cheesehead, a loyal member of the Bills Mafia, or an expat who only cares about the Super Bowl halftime show, fans seemingly can’t get enough of it. An average of 18.5 million viewers are tuning in to each game this year, but the bigger story has been the NFL brand taking its heft overseas, with regular season games played in Brazil, Ireland, the UK, and beyond.

The NFL isn’t resting on its laurels however. It’s been on the hunt for another new revenue segment to keep up its growth: fashion.

For the last few years, the NFL has followed the style icons of the NBA into the fashion ecosystem, embarking on collaborations with major brands like Abercrombie & Fitch, lululemon, and Nike. It has also developed the “NFL Tunnel”—where players show off their pregame outfits—into a much-watched prelude to the games themselves. It seems the athletes are happy to make up for all that time you can’t see them under their helmets and protective padding.

“The platform that we have is so unique and powerful,” said Ian Trombetta, SVP of social and influencer marketing at the NFL. “Fashion brands, designers, and others feel like there’s definitely a place for them, but then just the cultural resonance that’s coming off of the league [is] very similar to music. You’re going to see continued growth with what we’re doing in fashion, particularly as we start to expand globally.”

Tunnel vision

The NFL version of the popular NBA Tunnel sprouted up in 2019, according to Trombetta, as an evolution of the league’s social media strategy in spotlighting players off the field. The likes of Cincinnati Bengals’s Joe Burrow, the Kansas City Chiefs’s Travis Kelce, and the Baltimore Ravens’s DeAndre Hopkins started getting even more attention for their pregame “fits,” which frequently include luxury designer items.

The attention led to the NFL establishing a new Instagram account (@NFLStyle) dedicated to tunnel fits and fashion-focused portions of game broadcasts. Last year, the league also hired a full-time fashion editor, Kyle Smith, who’s helping develop its fashion presence beyond the tunnel.

“The consistency has been there from the league perspective, not only the in-season moments of how we use fashion and the tunnel as the new runway and those types of things, but also even off the field in the offseason,” Trombetta said. He added that players participating in high-profile events like Paris Fashion Week are exposing the NFL to valuable new audiences.

“Certainly you think about the reach that we have with women. Our youth engagement is at an all-time high,” he said.

Following the data

According to Launchmetrics, the NFL’s partnership with Abercrombie & Fitch recorded $1.2 million in media impact value (MIV) one week post-release (the proprietary statistic measures the impact of social media mentions). The NFL’s partnership with rapper Tyler, the Creator’s streetwear brand, Golf Wang, also generated $1.2 million in MIV in the same period.

“The Super Bowl has transformed the NFL from a sports league into a powerful cultural platform, in which brands find measurable value in showing up,” said Alison Bringé, CMO of Launchmetrics, in a statement via email. “What was once a single day of exposure has evolved into a year-round opportunity for lifestyle brands to tap into the NFL’s massive reach. Lululemon, for example, saw 155% spike in MIV on the day they announced their partnership, proving just how successful the strategy was in amplifying visibility.”

The NFL has no plans to slow down its presence in the fashion world, and each initiative is another indication that the category will continue to be a lucrative one.

“I really don’t see any limit to what we’re going to be doing,” Trombetta said. “That’s definitely catching on with a lot of these global fashion brands that are seeing that interest and that relevancy and want to be a part of it.”