The NFL builds a bye week into each team’s schedule, rewards the best two teams in each conference with a week off during the Wild Card round, and gives the Super Bowl teams a week off before the big game.
Rest is one thing, and in knowing that every team in the NFL could benefit from better sleep, the league on Wednesday announced a multi-year partnership with Minneapolis-based Sleep Number, famous for its mattresses with firmness can be adjusted with the push of a button.
Through the partnership, every player in the NFL will be offered Sleep Number’s 360 smart bed, replete with the trademark comfort adjustment and SleepIQ tech that provides insights into how a person sleeps best, according to the NFL. SleepIQ, which runs through a smartphone app, can provide information such as a person’s optimal Sleep Number and their best sleeping hours, as well as connecting to popular fitness tracking apps.
“We are constantly assessing world-class technologies and partners and know this unprecedented partnership will provide players the ability to improve their performance through individualized, smarter sleep,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said in a statement. “We’re offering Sleep Number’s revolutionary technology to maximize the body’s most basic need for renewal—sleep —to improve the well-being of our players and coaches.”
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The partnership also means that Sleep Number experts will work with team trainers on sleep regimens to provide players with maximal rest, which is often cited as necessary for rehabilitating injuries or avoiding them altogether.
“You don’t realize how much your body recovers itself while it sleeps. You need as much as possible,” Tyron Smith, an offensive lineman for the Dallas Cowboys, said.
“We’re excited to make a difference for these world-class athletes as they benefit from our SleepIQ technology and the effortless adjustability of our beds. And we are thrilled to be entering a long-term partnership with a performance-based organization like the NFL,” Shelly Ibach, Sleep Number’s president and chief executive officer, said in the announcement. “Our partnership builds off the deep relationship we’ve established with the Minnesota Vikings and the Dallas Cowboys, who understand the connection between sleep, training and performance.”
The timing of the partnership was opportune for the NFL and Sleep Number; one of Sleep Number’s first NFL clients was its hometown Minnesota Vikings, whose home venue at U.S. Bank Stadium will host Super Bowl LII.