NetApp is sponsoring the US National Football League (NFL) becoming its Official Intelligent Data Infrastructure partner.
The NFL is a trade association and sports league consisting of 32 professional American football teams organized into four divisions each within the American Football Conference (AFC) and National Football Conference (NFC). NetApp has been raising its sports sponsorship game recently. In January, it became a founding-level partner of the San Francisco 49ers professional football team in a multi-year deal and is now its Official Intelligent Data Infrastructure Partner. The 49ers play in the NFC West division. NetApp also has sponsorship deals with the San Jose Sharks ice hockey team, Porsche Motorsport, TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E team, and the Formula 1 Aston Martin Aramco Racing team.
Cesar Cernuda, president at NetApp, provided a statement: “The NFL has been a long-standing customer of NetApp, and it is gratifying to see their interest in expanding our relationship. By helping the NFL build an intelligent data infrastructure, we are elevating the sport for fans of football everywhere. Bringing intelligence to the league’s data storage allows them to modernize their infrastructure and gives them the tools they need to agilely adapt to the future.”
The NFL sports league says it has more than 218 million fans in the US with more overseas. We’re told: “NetApp will play a key role globally with the NFL, activating across the entire slate of 2025 International Games.” This will include being the presenting sponsor of the 2025 NFL London Games and the first-ever regular season NFL game in Madrid.
American football is the most-watched sport in the US, “with Super Bowls being among the highest-rated TV broadcasts in US history.” There were 37 league-level sponsors for the 2023-2024 season, including Best Buy, Campbell Soup, FedEx, Frito-Lay, Marriott, Rocket Mortgage, Subway, and Visa.
NetApp will provide storage technology to the NFL, with security mentioned, though few other details were provided. Renie Anderson, EVP and CRO at the NFL, said: “The global partnership between the NFL and NetApp represents a shared commitment to leveraging intelligent data to drive transformative solutions for the league. By combining our expertise with NetApp’s industry-leading intelligent data infrastructure, we can unlock new efficiencies that accelerate innovation within our game.”
Gary Brantley, chief information officer at the NFL, said: “Working with NetApp has helped us serve football fans worldwide by streamlining our technology operations and enabling us to be better custodians of our sport … Over the years we have worked together, NetApp has earned our trust that they can meet those high standards. With an intelligent data infrastructure powered by NetApp technology, we have a secure data storage strategy that can carry us into the future.”
How much is NetApp spending? According to Research and Markets, the average price of an annual NFL sponsorship deal for the 2023-2024 season was roughly $39 million with some deals at the $90 million-plus level. For example, EA Sports, Anheuser-Busch InBev, Nike, Verizon, and Microsoft were high-end sponsors.
