Three Wins from Super Bowl LIV
Sustainability, Representation, and Service Define the Legacy of the 2020 Super Bowl in Miami
Photo via CBS Sports
Call it a Super Bowl hangover. I didn’t deliver my usual Thursday piece on time, and for that I apologize! But before we put a wrap on the 2019-2020 NFL season, I did want to get a few quick thoughts out there to recap Super Bowl LIV, and the positive social impact of the event.
I won’t be breaking down how Patrick Mahomes orchestrated a thrilling 4th quarter comeback for the Kansas City Chiefs, or why Kyle Shanahan has now been involved in two of the biggest collapses in Super Bowl history.
Instead, I’d like to highlight some of the best purpose-driven partnerships and marketing that came out of this year’s Big Game. It was an entertaining year of NFL football, but the league’s 100th season was probably the most impactful to date.
Sustainability Efforts — Inside and Outside the Stadium
Photo via Matthew Noel / Ball Corp
Fans who attended Super Bowl LIV at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium were treated to a dining and entertainment experience with sustainability at its core.
Reporting from Front Office Sports explained that the venue served up dishes such as Cubano sausage, watermelon salads, and paella with ingredients sourced from local farms in South Florida.
In addition, Hard Rock Stadium became the first U.S. professional sports venue to eliminate plastic cups usage. The stadium partnered with packaging specialist, Ball, to produce 50,000 aluminum cups for the Super Bowl. Aluminum is infinitely recyclable, and while it is more expensive that plastic, it has a longer lifespan.
Photo via The Florida Villager
Alongside the in-stadium sustainability efforts, the Miami Super Bowl Host Committee partnered with the Ocean Conservancy, the Everglades Foundation, and NFL Green, to launch an environmental initiative called Ocean to Everglades (O2E). O2E was a series of “environmental events, education and sustainability efforts throughout South Florida leading up to Super Bowl LIV,” which included beach cleanups, urban community greening events, invasive species education and events, a celebration of students at Everglades National Park’s 72nd birthday, recycling initiatives, food recovery and a media tour of Florida Bay.
Finally, the state of Florida partnered with the NFL and a nonprofit organization called Force Blue to launch the “100 Yards of Hope” campaign to protect and restore coral reefs off the shores of Miami.
“100 yards of hope will be a year-long coral reef restoration project honoring the NFL’s 100th season and America’s military veterans,” said Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
Force Blue retrains former special operations veterans and tasks them with going underwater to work on coral reef conversation projects. Through a joint partnership with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Force Blue will work throughout this year to restore one hundred yards of coral reef in the size and shape of a football field.
Microsoft Celebrates Diversity and Inclusion with Katie Sowers
Photo via Associated Press
San Francisco 49ers offensive coach, Katie Sowers, made history on Sunday. Coach Sowers became the first female and first openly LGBTQ person to coach in a Super Bowl.
“All it takes is one, and it opens to door for so many.”
-Katie Sowers
With a one-minute spot during the game, Microsoft celebrated Katie Sowers’ story by featuring her journey from growing up in Kansas, to playing in the American women’s football league, to becoming an NFL coach with the Niners in 2017.
“I never saw an opportunity in football because I had never seen a female coach before,” Sowers said in the commercial. “People tell me that people aren’t ready to have a woman lead, but these guys have been learning from women their whole lives. Moms, grandmas, teachers. We have all these assumptions in life about what women do in life and what men do. I’m not trying to be the best female coach. I’m trying to be the best coach.”
The National Football League doesn’t have the best record when it comes to diversity, equity, inclusion, and representation. However, the presence of Coach Katie Sowers on the sidelines at Super Bowl LIV is a step in the right direction. The league will be better for it, especially if we have a generation of female and LGBTQ individuals who feel like they have a place in the game of football.
Over 300 Million Minutes of Service
Photo from NFL.com
The NFL celebrated its one hundredth season in a variety of ways. But one of the most impactful programs was the NFL Huddle for 100. Starting with the 2019 NFL Draft in April, the league put out a call for community service across the entire NFL family, setting a goal to deliver 100 million minutes of volunteer service to communities across the country.
Huddle for 100 service projects supported causes including “hunger; youth health and wellness; community improvement and clean-up; cancer awareness and prevention; and military and veterans support.”
During Super Bowl week, the NFL announced that not only did the league meet its 100 million minute goal, it shattered the goal by producing 375.9 million minutes of community service across all fifty states.
“When we started the 100th season, we wanted to celebrate our history, of course,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goddell said. “But we also wanted to celebrate giving back so our communities. So we asked everybody in the NFL family to give 100 minutes back into their community.”
The league estimates that, in total, $159,322,637 worth of volunteer time was given. The NFL’s thirty-two teams organized more than 1,250 community events, and more than 300 nonprofit and community organizations benefited from Huddle for 100.
Efforts like Huddle for 100 demonstrate the power of sports to bring people together to do good. The NFL deserves major kudos for building a community service movement like this and using its influence and power to make a positive impact on communities.
Win-Win-Win is a community for purpose-driven leaders in the sports and entertainment industry. Once a week, on Thursdays (and sometimes on Fridays), I’ll send you a thoughtful essay/blog post about how we might leverage the influence of our industry for good. Please reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn if you’d like to connect and discuss my work or find ways that we might collaborate.