NFL Players Association Creates New Ad Campaign To Spread Awareness of Potential Lockout
Washington, DC,
January 28, 2011
Players: “Let Us Play” Fans: “Let Them Play”
Here we are, The Super Bowl, the biggest event in sports, and an NFL Lockout looms very large. As the NFL celebrates its most successful season ever, NFL owners are preparing to lock out players and fans from their game starting in March. Owners have not opened their books or offered justification for this threat. The players want to play and the fans want to see them play. So, why won’t the Owners take a Lockout off the table? Do your part as a fan and help Block the Lockout.
In a new ad campaign during Super Bowl weekend, the NFL Players Association expects a social-media-backed video and petition drive will gain traction with fans.
The union is unveiling 30 – and 60-second spots entitled “Let Us Play,” in which players and fans alike intone “Let us play” and “Let them play.” The spots have no other dialogue and depict a padlock of a chain-link fence and images from an empty football stadium.
“For us, it’s a simple issue: there’s a lockout being threatened by the owners of America’s most popular sport,” said NFLPA Assistant Executive Director of External Affairs George Atallah. “In that context, the ‘Let Us Play’ message is one that is delivered not just by the players but by the fans. We need to stand together to avoid a terrible outcome.”
Players and fans began using #LetUsPlay on Jan. 18, when the Twitter hashtag was one of the world’s top-four trending topics. The NFLPA is using @NFLLockout on Twitter and NFLLockout on Facebook as it’s Block the Lockout social media arms.
The NFLPA will rely heavily on social media channels, but the spot will appear on TV only once: during CBS’s telecast of the NFLPA All-Star Game on Saturday, Feb. 5, a day before Super Bowl XLV.
