San Francisco 49ers and Leeds United - how NFL team are building on existing relationship - Yorkshire Post 15/10/22

For NFL fans of a certain vintage, the name San Francisco 49ers evokes fond memories.

By Nick Westby

The team in red and gold from the far away land of northern California were responsible for many people being drawn to American football when it first hit our television screens in the 1980s .

Joe Montana, the gunslinger at quarterback, hurling passes to Jerry Rice, the lightning-quick wide receiver, as a pensive Bill Walsh, the head coach, looked on from the sidelines.

Sport is cyclical, though, and dominance doesn’t last forever. The 49ers’ time came and went, the NFL’s expansion into the London market 15 years ago heralding a new dawn and creating fans of all 32 teams.

But the 49ers are re-emerging in the UK and doing so in Yorkshire.

In 2018, 49ers Enterprises invested in Leeds United, growing that stake to 44 per cent last year.

Last December they obtained UK marketing rights via the NFL’s latest drive to grow not only the league’s brand, but fanbases around the world. On Sunday night at the Box Sports Bar in ‘downtown’ Leeds, the 49ers host their f irst ever international Watch Party for their week six game with the Atlanta Falcons.

Fans in attendance can expect to experience an authentic NFL game day atmosphere inclusive of starting lineup announcements, chants and scoring songs. Appearances will be made by a 49ers alumni, team mascot Sourdough Sam, and Leeds United personnel. At the end of each quarter, raffles featuring 49ers prizes and memorabilia will be conducted.

“This is a great opportunity for us to build our brand globally,” Allie Dicken, the 49ers director of brand and influencer marketing told T he Yorkshire Post .

"The Leeds United connection we have allows us to engage with existing sports fans in England, and entice them through our relationship to get involved in 49ers football.

"The Watch Party is our first international event of this kind, our first activation for this relationship in the UK and we’re really excited to kick that off."

Attracting existing 49ers fans as well as those from the growing NFL fanbase in the United Kingdom that has helped sell out 32 regular season games in London over the last 15 years, is the obvious starting point.

But the long-term goal is to create new fans of the 49ers.

"Our game is after the Leeds United-Arsenal match on Sunday, we’ll be at Box about an hour after the Leeds game wraps up and we’ll have a lot of people still at Box for that, or heading over from Elland Road, so it’s a cool opportunity to for us to expose our brand to people who may not even know we’re doing a watch party,” continues Dicken.

“There’ll also be a lot of people from our UK fan chapters who are travelling from around the country for the party.

"Our ultimate goal is to grow the game of American Football internationally, forge new and deeper relationships with fans abroad and be able to amplify the 49ers brand and build our fanbase internationally.

"We have been steadily pushing UK specific content on our digital social platforms, we’ve been working with our corporate partnerships team on using our new rights to identify new potential partners and we’ve also signed several media partners to help us distribute 49ers content across the country.”