NFL Headquarters, Free Swag and Fantasy Drafts: A Blogger's Story

This season, FanHouser's Stephanie Stradley and Will Brinson were invited as part of a promotional campaign to compete for a trip to the Super Bowl and a $10,000 donation to a local charity as a part of P&G's Blogger Fantasy League on NFL.com's new fantasy football platform. P&G paid for them to take a trip to NFL Headquarters in New York City to pick their fantasy teams. This is Stephanie's experience:

It's hard to talk about a wonderful once-in-a-lifetime experience to others who were not there without feeling guilty. It was amazing. If I could, I would have packed you all in my suitcase and taken you with me, but you'd be over the 50-pound limit and, well, the airlines aren't kind to checked luggage.

I'm writing this longform because as far as I can tell nobody else has, but if you don't care for that sort of thing, there's other places to visit on the web that use fewer words.

Looking for good karma.

When I want to win something, I try to find good signs everywhere. For example, on the trip to New York, I got bumped up to first class. A good sign, with the intentionally goofy picture to document it. When I checked into my room, it included my lucking number "17." Yes, good signs everywhere.

The bloggers all got to town the Wednesday before our draft to meet for drinks and then dinner. Even without the headquarters visit, the trip was very fun because I was able to meet a number of bloggers I've only communicated with by email or admired their writing from afar. Some people have big blog personalities but are quiet when you meet them in person.

There wasn't much of that going on with this group. Lots of very different personalities from different backgrounds, but it was very entertaining. We first met in a midtown bar that was so crowded and tiny that we were lucky nobody got pregnant. Don't look at me -- definitely not prego. Then it was off for sushi and to find out what pick we had in the draft.

So is 8 a lucky number?

Good food paid by somebody else always tastes better. Thanks Procter & Gamble. They did a random drawing for draft position, and I got 8. If you've done any fantasy drafts or mock drafts this year, you know the 8th spot is around where you have to think a bit.

Dan Shanoff of DanShanoff.com drew the first pick, and everybody started yelling TEBOW! Shanoff also runs TimTeblog, so we figured he needed to take Tebow with the first pick. (It turned out that Josh Zerkle from KSK and With Leather took Tebow as a joke so that Dan couldn't. And Josh still has a good fantasy team). Then the group wandered back to the hotel bar because that's a rational thing to do. Most people stayed up way too late, especially those of us not on Eastern time where the wake-up call was going to come extra early.

Bloggers invade NFL Headquarters.

In my last post, I wondered what NFL headquarters looks like. Turns out, it looks a bit like a corporate law office mixed with amazing murals and pictures and stunning collectibles. Things like the Lombardi trophy surrounded by rings of all the Super Bowl teams. A display case that contains a collection of Pat Tillman's things. Tradition.

They walked us into the room where the draft was going to be held and it was beyond expectations. They had the helmets of all 32 teams on the desk, placards with our names in front of our seats, and a collection of P&G and NFL gifts to take home. The best gift was a personalized ball signed by Jerry Rice. (Rice did some work with P&G over at the Take It To The House Facebook page but was not in attendance. If you like free P&G and NFL stuff too, I suggest going to their contest FB page -- grand prize is a trip to the Pro Bowl.).

The day went by fast. We picked our teams, we had various NFL visitors pop in to see what we were up to, and a few visitors answered questions that we had about a variety of topics.

NFL protecting its internet content.

Probably the biggest discussion was on the topic of NFL.com. Currently, NFL videos are not embeddable by others on the internet. So whenever a big play happens, typically fans rip video from their televisions to their computers (or if you're old school, just point the video camera at your TV) and put clips on YouTube. And then the NFL spends time getting them deleted.

The NFL is like a number of companies concerned with how their content could be used and sometimes abused. Those of us who write about NFL topics wish that the NFL would promote their product by putting interesting video on their own website and making them embeddable, which means, sharable to larger audiences.

In a related topic, we discussed the rule that limits the amount of gameday/practice footage that can be used by non-NFL sites as a condition of their media credentials, and how it is barely worth editing video if it can only be archived for 24 hours.

Ultimately, I believe that the demand for quality NFL content is nearly infinite -- it's not a limited bucket of information. That the NFL doesn't have to worry about competition from traditional and new media sources because the NFL will always have some content that is exclusive because of their relationship with the teams.

New and traditional media sources are a conduit to get more NFL content out plus promote the league with their own content. The NFL may feel like they lose control, but given the activity on YouTube, that control is just an illusion.

NFL and the world market.
We spoke some about the NFL's desire to take more home games abroad. It's a sore subject for diehard fans who support the teams with their season ticket dollars. The NFL's thinking is that if the league expands to 18 regular season games, it takes some of the sting of losing a home game.

Personally, at least in the short term, I believe the No. 1 way to grow the game is to make it easier for fans overseas to see their favorite teams every week. Lots of bootleg NFL DVDs are sent across the pond.

In fact, I recently received this comment in my Houston Chronicle blog on the subject:

"You also spoke about the game internationally - I'm against taking games away from American fans but we really do need more TV coverage over here in the UK especially if the NFL wants the game to grow. Not everyone has satellite or cable here and there is no coverage on free to air channels (I'm lucky enough to have Sky who show 2 games on a Sunday plus all Thursday games, play off games and Superbowl. ESPN will show the MNF but that costs extra to get that channel). Maybe the NFL should look into allowing the NFL Network to broadcast to the UK & Europe. I know the NFL is a business and therefore wants to make money but Sky used to show 5 games on a Sunday - an early kick off with another game via interactive tv then a later game again via interactive tv followed by SNF - now it's down to just 2 games. Obviously the NFL wanted to charge the UK broadcaster too much money for what is after all a minority sport over here. They will not broaden the appeal of football if people can't afford it or get easy access."

Dialogue with the NFL.

What I learned from our very free and open discussion on various topics is that the NFL is listening and that change happens, but sometimes incrementally. Even the fact that the NFL now has a fantasy football platform on their site demonstrates change. (For those of you using it, please use their feedback form and let them know what you think. We talked to the people working on it, and they want to hear what users like and dislike about the site).

After I came home, someone asked me if we talked about the uncertain labor environment. Nobody asked about it because I am guessing that everyone we talked to wants football to happen next year. They love the game too. There was no point talking to the NFL representatives about that subject because we weren't going to hear anything new. Negotiation doesn't happen with talking points to either the old or new media.

The NFL Command Room.

After our draft was done, we were able to visit the NFL Command Room. It's a room with many high-definition televisions, including a big television. On game day, if a network has a question about a call in the game, they can call the command room and get some information. To control the TVs for slo-mo and reverse, they have a remote that looks like a basic video game controller.

The room is also used to grade referees, though some of the grading can also be done from the graders' homes. We were told that it takes approximate five hours to grade each game, and that for each game around 98 percent of the calls are correct.

My luck and my draft, maybe didn't go so well.

I'm pretty happy with the top and bottom of my fantasy draft but the rest ... not so much. We'll see. Then my luck really started going south because on my trip home, instead of the bump up to first class, through my extreme tiredness I sat in the wrong seat back in coach. The flight attendant told me that was okay, that I didn't need to move. And then it turned out that the kid sitting next to me, a sweet nice kid, threw up for the first half hour of the flight.

None of the vomit got on me. So maybe that's a good sign.