Forward of the 2025-2026 NFL season, the league introduced Sony as a know-how associate for brand spanking new coaches’ headsets. The information marked the top of a multi-year absence for a headset sponsor following the NFL’s take care of Bose, which concluded in 2022, and provides Sony a pivotal place on the sidelines for each NFL sport.
That publicity, amid the NFL’s rising rankings, is bringing vital worth.
In accordance with AI-powered sponsorship analytics platform Relo Metrics, Sony’s headset publicity within the 2025 NFL season is averaging round $46,000 per sport in sponsor media worth (SMV), which takes into consideration varied components resembling high quality and viewership.
Contemplating Relo Metrics estimates throughout all 272 common season video games, Sony’s headset exposures are projected to usher in roughly $12.5 million in broadcast media worth—that’s from high-quality exposures on each streaming and linear—for the season. Trying on the full media worth of the deal, which estimates all of the exposures throughout digital and social, no matter high quality, the deal might be value upwards of $56 million in full media worth (FMV) for the 2025 season.
“The one actual mass viewers you possibly can attain nowadays, whether or not it’s by way of a broadcast or a stream or in individual, is especially sports activities,” Relo Metrics CEO Jay Prasad informed ADWEEK, including, “These reside moments find yourself having all of this virality on social media, and we measure and monitor all that, so a whole lot of occasions you’re getting worth for days, if not longer.”
So how did Sony rating such a chief spot?
In accordance with Sony and NFL executives, there’s mutual worth that goes past the greenback indicators, with this new step years within the making.
“It is a true partnership. It’s not only a sponsorship the place we’re slapping a emblem on one thing. We have now been working hand-in-hand with the NFL for a few years on completely different applied sciences, so that is the end result of that,” stated Maya Wasserman, Sony’s head of promoting, private and residential leisure, and model advertising. “There’s been over a decade of us working collectively.”
Forward of the headset deal, Sony was already working with the NFL as a know-how associate throughout a number of completely different elements of the sport, together with using Sony’s Hawk-Eye digital measurement system for the NFL’s new line-to-gain this season; implementing Sony’s Past Sports activities know-how for different broadcasts, such because the NFL’s Toy Story sport from 2023; and that includes Sony cameras all through the NFL’s programming.
So when the NFL was searching for a associate for its headsets, Sony match proper into the sport plan.
Tracie Rodburg, senior vp of world partnerships on the NFL, stated that Sony, very like Microsoft tablets on the sidelines or Nike uniforms for the gamers, is endemic to the league.
“We’re not a company that’s simply going to place a model in there for model sake, however we do have the alternatives when it’s about: What are you doing to assist advance the sport?” Rodburg stated. “That’s why you now see the connection come to life a lot on this explicit manner.”
The years spent working collectively additionally constructed up an important stage of belief.
In spite of everything, the NFL’s ask wasn’t simple: To ship a customized headset in time for the NFL preseason, Sony engineers needed to put the product collectively in beneath a yr.
In accordance with the executives, the construct concerned Sony engineers touring from Japan to satisfy with the NFL’s IT and operations personnel to grasp the calls for of the sport, after which delving into the nuances: how the know-how reacts to chilly, crowd noise, warmth, and different environmental components. Coaches and the NFL additionally gave direct suggestions as Sony applied and examined adjustments.
“This was a reasonably fast construct of a customized product,” Wasserman stated. “Constructed customized and delivered in time for the [preseason] Corridor of Fame Recreation. It was a real collaboration between each [the Sony and NFL] groups, and since there was that historical past and belief, it labored very well to satisfy deadlines and calls for the NFL wanted.”
Rodburg famous that there can be steady enchancment because the nuances of the sport revealed themselves; nonetheless, the preliminary outcomes have been so optimistic that each she and Sony Electronics president Neal Manowitz might “take a breath.”
“The primary week, I used to be positively on pins and needles and texting with Neal, who I did the take care of at Sony, simply because this was our second that we had labored so laborious collectively to get to,” Rodburg stated. “Then to see it on the sphere—and crucial half is that they labored, not solely completely, they labored higher than any coach thought that they might.”
In accordance with Wasserman, shifting ahead, Sony will additional help its presence within the sport by working advertisements on Thursday Night time Soccer and programmatic placements in Monday Night time video games, however the worth of the connection finally goes effectively past sports activities commercials.
“Once you’re seeing our emblem, it’s not simply on an indication,” Wasserman stated. “It’s on each single coach as they’re speaking with their quarterbacks, calling performs. It’s tied on to our know-how. That’s priceless.”
