Music is woven into the fabric of sports around the world. The NFL has become a prime example, with pump-up music blasting in players ears before games, and on stadium loudspeakers during them. With the 2016-17 NFL season kicking off tonight, Spotify and Athlete Content & Entertainment (ACE Media) – the relatively new content producing arm of the NFL Players Association – announced their new Trading Playlists series.
The seven-part video series features some of the NFL’s biggest names sharing their Spotify playlists with a teammate or counterpart, in short documentary style episodes. Tyler Eifert, Rashad Jennings, Stefon Diggs, Kony Ealy and many more players are featured. The NFL players come together to share their playlists, which span genres from hip-hop to country, in settings far away from the football field. The digital studio, Collab, helped produce the sleek video content.
Get ready for kick-off with the @Broncos’ @Millerlite40 & @DeMarcusWare in #TradingPlaylists on the mobile app
pic.twitter.com/uTHctCXvb2
— Spotify (@Spotify) September 8, 2016
Tonight’s season opener is a Super Bowl 50 rematch, with the Panthers heading to Denver to take on the defending champions. Fittingly, the first episode of the Trading Playlists series features Von Miller, last year’s Super Bowl MVP and his teammate DeMarcus Ware. The two defensive stars share their completely different Spotify playlists in Miller’s basement getaway.
All seven episodes of the series are currently available exclusively on Spotify’s mobile app, for U.S. customers only. ACE Media is very excited about this musical collaboration. Scott Langerman, the CEO of ACE Media, sees this series as the start of a potentially fruitful relationship.
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“Working with an industry pioneer with the global reach of Spotify and the team at Collab was a unique opportunity to showcase a side of our players that their fans don’t often get to see, through a medium – music – that unites athletes across all sports. Most importantly we – and our players – have had a blast creating this series, and look forward to working with Spotify to bridge the gap between sports and entertainment for many years to come.”
ACE Media has partnerships with a wide range of companies, from media outlets like The Players’ Tribune and Bleacher Report to Nike. And this isn’t the first collaboration between the NFL brand and Spotify. Madden 2017’s full 40-song playlist is currently available on the digital music service.
The NFL is by far the most popular sports league in the U.S., but even with all of the media attention and coverage, players can seem inaccessible. Massive rosters, helmets and only 16 games can leave fans clamoring for more face time with players. Trading Playlists’ episodes are brief, but they give NFL fans an inside look into a very relatable aspect of players’ lives.
Fans hear the music at stadiums. They watch their favorite players in music-laden commercials. They see many of them arriving on game day with headphones, and warming up to their personalized get-me-ready-for-the-game playlists. But, fans rarely know what they are actually listening to. Now they do.
Trading Playlists helps to create a more personal connection between fan and player. If this series is a success, NFL fans will surely see, and more importantly hear, much more from this series.