The NFL Continues Focus on Gen Z Fanbase With Their Latest Roblox Launch of NFL Quarterback Simulator
BY TOM FRIEND - 11.23.2022
The NFL is already recruiting its audience for the 2044 season.
With the release of its latest Roblox initiative, NFL Quarterback Simulator, the league continued to cater to the elusive prepubescent and teenage demographic with a goal of converting Gen Z fans (ages 7 to 22) into NFL viewers for life.
As of now, the median age of fans who watch NFL games on traditional television is 54. But with the advent of Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football streams — to go with Nickelodeon’s Wild Card SlimeCast, its NFL Slimetime studio shows and TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram content — that number appears to be shrinking by the season.
Add in the league’s foray into the metaverse through Roblox, and it’s clear the NFL is thinking several decades ahead.
"It’s for the continuation and the growth of the game," the league’s chief revenue officer and executive vice president of NFL partnerships, Renie Anderson told SportTechie last February prior to a Super Bowl-centric Roblox release. "We’ve been around for 100 years, and we’re going to be around 100 more. We have 187 million fans. We’re not done. We’re not going to be complacent and say, ‘Okay, we’ve got the most, so we’re good.'"
"We’re going to continue to grow, not age out. So it’s really important that we focus on that younger fan. Because they’re the future, right? Not just of our country but of football."
Tuesday’s launch of the NFL Quarterback Simulator was the league’s second officially licensed collaboration with Roblox and incorporates the league’s Fuel Up to Play 60 initiative into the platform — so young fans can mix in physical activity with their gaming experience.
Washington’s emerging wide receiver Terry McLaurin, for instance, is included in the Roblox game as the quest non-playable character, where he urges young contestants to pause the game and integrate Fuel Up to Play 60 physical challenges into their daily regimen. Fans who partake in McLaurin’s suggested workouts earn gems (the in-game currency), which and be turned around and used to purchase game-related items.
Kansas City wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster — who, like McLaurin, is a Fuel Up to Play 60 ambassador — is also included in the game as a non-playable character and is part of exclusive trading card packs that users can collect as they throw footballs at mythical targets on the virtual playing field.
To be specific, NFL Quarterback Simulator allows Roblox users to play on "fantastical" football fields, where they attempt to obliterate themed targets with passes, while hording card packs and putting together an all-star team as they roam the field. It is designed to attract regular Roblox players, which tend to be from the Gen Z demographic.
Developed in concert with the metaverse studio MELON, the game piggybacks on the league’s initial Roblox release during last February’s Super Bowl week, NFL Tycoon. Even prior to that, in November of 2021, the league launched a virtual storefront on Roblox, where users could go to an in-game NFL Shop to dress their Roblox avatars in NFL-branded helmets and uniforms.
Considering Roblox, at the time, had a reported 47 million daily users — half of which were believed to be under 13 years old — it is no surprise the NFL is going this younger route. The league is also chasing after the valuable 18-to-34 demographic, and its Thursday Night streams on Prime Video have accomplished just that.
According to the Los Angeles Times, early season data from Nielson revealed that the 18-to-34 age group had accounted for 24% of Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night stream audience, as opposed to being only 14% of the traditional TV audience. Through four weeks this season, overall, NFL viewership among that 18-to-34 demographic had risen 67% compared to last year, and the median age of the Thursday Night Football streaming viewer was down to age 46.
"The [fans] you really want to try and grab are the ones from, like 7 to 18, because they’re the ones that have the short attention spans right now, and they look at things very quickly," Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon told SportTechie at last February’s Super Bowl, when discussing initiatives such as Roblox’s NFL Tycoon. "And if it’s not exciting to them or engaging to them, they’re going to move on to something else. Because there’s so many other platforms for them to watch on that smartphone right here in their hands."