The NFL has turned its offseason into part of the show
The NFL doesn't wait for kickoff to start entertaining. The Myles Garrett trade to the Rams, arguably one of the biggest defensive trades in NFL history, has been followed by Aaron Donald's shock return from retirement, giving LA two of the best defensive linemen of the last decade on the same roster. Add in Fernando Mendoza starting at quarterback for the Raiders and big-name moves like Kenneth Walker to the Chiefs, and the NFC and AFC picture has shifted before a single snap of the new season.
What stands out is how deliberately the NFL treats all of this as content, not just news. Team social accounts jab at each other from draft night onwards. Schedule release day has become its own occasion. Superbowl opening night puts rival quarterbacks in front of the same cameras, and every trade, injury or contract update gets pushed out as fast as it lands.
That's the model most sports organisations are still chasing: an always-on presence across every channel, not just a content calendar built around matchdays. It's the core idea behind channel management done properly, and a big part of why the NFL's offseason gets as much attention as its playoffs.
Alysa Liu proves you don't need to compete to stay relevant
Alysa Liu, one of the breakout stars of Milano Cortina, has announced she'll sit out the 2026/27 figure skating season. In the past, stepping away from competition might have meant disappearing from view entirely. That's no longer true.
Between brand partnerships with the likes of Nike and Louis Vuitton and a social presence built on an authentic, slightly unpolished aesthetic, Liu has room to stay visible without a single competitive result. Fans don't need medals to stay invested, small glimpses of an athlete's life away from the sport are often enough. It's the same pattern seen with retired stars like Tom Brady or JJ Watt, who've stayed part of the conversation long after their careers ended, largely through the kind of ongoing, personality-led content that sits at the centre of influencer and creator partnerships.
Has social media ruined transfer deadline day?
Deadline day used to have its own particular chaos: reporters outside training grounds, fans glued to Sky Sports News, and then, finally, the club post confirming what everyone had been waiting for.
Now, by the time a club posts its "Welcome" graphic on socials, the deal has often been public knowledge for hours, sometimes days, thanks to reporters like Fabrizio Romano and David Ornstein, along with fan networks like AFTV. The debate on the podcast landed on a "no", social media hasn't ruined deadline day, it's just changed who tells the story first.
The bigger question for clubs is what to do about it. If a transfer is already common knowledge before the official announcement, the club has lost the element of surprise, but not the opportunity. The conversation now happens across feeds, comments and reaction content well before and after the confirmation, which means the smartest clubs aren't trying to compete with Romano for the breaking news moment, they're building content around everything that comes after it: the arrival, the first reaction, the welcome interview, the fan response. That shift, from owning the announcement to owning the story around it, is exactly where content studios and production earns its place in a club's wider strategy.
The Content Spotlight: fandom itself is becoming the product
This month's Content Spotlight covered two very different examples of the same idea, letting fans, not just results, drive the content.
Netflix's new show Beat Luke Littler puts amateur darts players in front of the world number one for a shot at £501,000, live on Netflix in October. It's a fun format in its own right, but it also reflects a wider shift: fans aren't just an audience for these moments any more, they're part of the story. The same logic sits behind LeBron James launching his own YouTube channel, another example of an athlete building a direct relationship with fans outside of any single platform or broadcaster.
Nike's new "Rivalry" alternate uniforms for every NFL franchise did something similar from the brand side, tying each jersey to a piece of team history and generating a wave of fan content in response. None of these moments needed a live game to work. They worked because they gave fans something to react to, share and debate, exactly the territory covered by monetisation consultancy when it comes to turning fan attention into genuine commercial value.
TL;DR: The story is moving away from the scoreboard
Whether it's Amy Hunt's golds, the NFL's offseason, Alysa Liu stepping back, or a transfer deal breaking on social media before it breaks officially, the theme running through this episode is the same. The result or the announcement is only ever the start of the story now. What happens around it, on social, in content, in the conversation between fans, is where the real opportunity sits.
For rights holders, clubs and brands, the lesson is consistent: attention is easier to win than loyalty, and the organisations getting this right are the ones building research and insights-backed strategies for what comes after the headline, not just the headline itself.
Listen or watch the full episode of The Commentary Box now.
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