NFL Media rolls out new ad campaign to hype start of season

America may be obsessing over Missy Franklin’s amazing Monday performance in the Olympics, but the National Football League is eager to remind sports fans that the new season is only a month away and preseason games are starting next week.

NFL Media is rolling out a big new ad campaign to hype the start of the season. Some of the spots will specifically serve to promote the Thursday night package of games that are on its own NFL Network cable channel.

In the upcoming season, the league will put 13 games on the NFL Network -- up from 8 last season -- in an effort to strengthen the channel and put more pressure on the distributors that are not currently carrying it, including Time Warner Cable.

Created by Los Angeles-based advertising agency David & Goliath, the national ad campaign has been dubbed “It’s Serious Fun.”

The NFL has become a ratings powerhouse for the TV industry, which spends billions of dollars annually for the rights to televise games.

However, the league had to deal with a lot of negative stories in the off-season that it would like to put in the past. Not only did the NFL accuse the New Orleans Saints of having a program that encouraged its defensive unit to intentionally injure rival players, there continues to be concern about the physical and mental damage players experience from the game.

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