Being a football fan is basically a full-time job. To promote its latest collections from NFL Shop, the league’s marketing arm is leaning into the idea of professional fandom.

In a campaign that rolled out during kickoff last month, more than 60 NFL fans rep merch from various teams as NFL players discuss their relationships with fans.

Selling jerseys to football fans might seem about as easy as giving candy to a baby, but the effort is meant to do more than just drive sales, according to Marissa Solis, the league’s SVP of global and brand marketing—it’s also about making fans feel involved, showcasing player personalities, and modernizing the NFL Shop campaign that’s stayed relatively the same as the league has been changing, Solis said.

“For the last five [or] six years, we’ve had a very ‘same’ campaign,” Solis told Marketing Brew. “Every year we say, ‘Hey, go to NFLShop.com [and] purchase your favorite jersey from your favorite team.’...We hadn’t really plused things up or given fans a reason to get excited.”

Full-time fan: The idea behind the campaign, called “Fan Like a Pro,” came from independent creative agency Yard NYC, which Solis said her team brought in to help “change things up” for NFL Shop.

When the agency team started looking into football fandom and fashion, they realized “it’s so much more than a jersey and a hat,” and wanted to highlight the ways people express their fandom through different styles, Yard NYC CEO Ruth Bernstein told us.

“Fans plan, fans anticipate,” Solis said. “They go to battle, if you will, for their team. They are just as professional, they are just as involved, they are just as engaged in the game as the players are…They fan like pros.”

Continue reading here.—AM

The Federal Communications Commission is in the middle of reviewing a cap preventing entities from owning broadcast TV stations that reach more than 39% of the national TV audience, as well as reviewing other existing media ownership rules and limits. But first, at the FCC’s September meeting, at least one of its commissioners wanted to talk about Jimmy Kimmel.

During the meeting, Commissioner Anna M. Gomez, a Democrat, called out FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s comments about ABC and its late-night talk show, Jimmy Kimmel Live, which was briefly suspended by Disney after the host made remarks about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s alleged killer in an on-air monologue. She also seemed to reference an incident from last month when President Trump, who appointed Carr, in a heated exchange with ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl, suggested that the Department of Justice might “go after” Karl.

Gomez’s remarks were made as part of a broader commentary about the potential that increased consolidation could lead to fewer viewpoints being represented and could give government agencies like the FCC more power to exert control over protected speech across networks. In a press conference held after the meeting, Carr pushed back, The Guardian reported.

This meeting centered on discussing rules including the Local Television rule, which prohibits one company from owning more than two stations in a market, and the Dual Network rule, which restricts mergers between two of any of the four major broadcast networks (ABC, NBC, Fox, and CBS).

At the end of the meeting, the FCC ultimately voted to move forward with seeking public comment on media ownership limits.

Read more here.—JS

California TV watchers will no longer be startled awake by blaring cheery voice-overs as they doze off during their Futurama rewatch. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law this week that will require streaming advertisements to have the same audio level as the shows they interrupt.

Starting in July, the volume level of ads on streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and HBO Max must match that of the content—meaning no more deafening jolts about moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. The rule is based on a similar US federal law that only covered ads on traditional TV, not streaming, which was passed in December 2010. That year, the FCC received over 130,000 complaints, mainly about loud commercials.

California’s new ad volume controls were written by State Senator Tom Umberg but inspired by his legislative director, who was frustrated with streaming ads waking up his newborn daughter, Samantha. So thank you, Samantha.

Big picture: California’s outsized role in the entertainment industry could push other states to adopt the ordinance that garnered near-unanimous support in the state legislature from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers.—MM

Executive moves across the industry.

• Geico tapped Goldman Sachs alum Arianna Orpello to be CMO beginning in January.
• General Motors promoted Lin-Hua Wu, a former Google exec who joined GM in 2023, to the role of chief communications and marketing officer.
• Paramount hired Roku exec Jay Askinasi as chief revenue officer, where he will oversee the company’s ad sales division.
• Telemundo upped Joaquin Duro to EVP of sports and head of streaming.
• Molson Coors Chief Commercial Officer Michelle St. Jacques is exiting the company next month.