Four years ago, the NFL celebrated its 100th birthday with a Super Bowl spot that was great fun, but also quite traditional—with scores of the league’s top players, past and present, battling over a football at a banquet. The ending of that spot, though, hinted at an evolution of the NFL brand that was already underway, as a 15-year-old female youth player, Sam Gordon, got a moment with the ball—an acknowledgment of the girls’ game as part of football’s future.

Read: Ad Age ranks the Top 5 Super Bowl 2023 ads 

That brand evolution reached a new peak Sunday night with the NFL's Super Bowl 2023 halftime spot. Its captivating star is Diana Flores, quarterback of the Mexico women’s national flag football team—whose sprint through 90 frenetic seconds isn’t just entertaining, but very much embodies the NFL’s growth strategy for the years ahead.

In focusing on a Hispanic woman who plays flag football, the league advances several core strategies simultaneously: first, growing flag football as a game, particularly in high schools, where safety concerns about tackle football continue to reduce participation; second, encouraging fandom among women and people of color; and finally, through cameos including YouTuber MrBeast, courting the youth market that’s also critical to the game’s future.

Tim Ellis, chief marketing officer at the NFL, told Ad Age that hitting all of these strategies—without sacrificing entertainment value—is a milestone accomplishment when it comes to the league’s advertising.

“Youth, Latinos and female fans are our best opportunity to drive further growth in this country. This ad talks to all three,” he said. “Flag is a terrific opportunity because it’s fast, it’s fun, and it’s inclusive. Anyone can play, and they can play anywhere. So we decided to take our biggest marketing moment of the year and focus on flag, and on all the girls and women who are driving this game forward.”

Marissa Solis, the NFL’s head of global brand and consumer marketing, who has been helping lead efforts to diversify the NFL’s fan base, said they couldn’t have dreamed up a better ambassador—or flat-out athletic superstar—than Flores.

“This is such a perfect story because, yes, it’s about flag, but it’s also about our growing fan base,” she said. “Diana is such an incredible athlete. She has been pushing the sport forward. Everything you see in the spot is her. It’s so perfect to showcase her skills. Plus, she is a Latina. Our Latino fanbase is 31 million strong and growing. So, yes, it’s strategic, but it’s also just a wonderful story.”

A new ‘sport language’

The spot is quite Nike-esque in its structure—an athletic chase with comic cameos along the way. Glenn Cole, 72andSunny’s co-founder, who cut his teeth on Nike at Wieden+Kennedy years ago, said the spot works so well in large part because Flores is such a unique athlete who was fully committed while filming.

“The way athletes move, it’s a language,” he said. “You do your best to get an athlete to give you 100%, so you’re hearing them fully—their full self-expression. And it’s hard because this is their livelihood and they don’t want to injure themselves. But Diana was in 110%. She has a dance background, which, along with her football skills, it’s like she’s speaking a different language. It looks like a new kind of sport language, unique to her, and we’re hoping girls everywhere see this and think, ‘I could do this, and bring my own kind of language to it, too.’”

With the goal of framing flag football as “a badass athletic sport,” Cole said Flores was the ideal choice—because she’s not just a star of the sport. She’s the best in the world, male or female. 

“Repositioning flag is one of the jobs we’re trying to do as stewards of football,” he said. “So we were Google searching, like ‘badass flag football skills.’ And her highlights come up. Then it just became about capturing what she can do. I’m glad she’s who she is. I’m glad she’s where she’s from. I’m glad she’s the gender she is. But she’s also just the best.”

The idea to feature Flores was actually a secondary idea at first; they were considering using it for next year’s Super Bowl. But Ellis said he fast-tracked the idea after meeting Flores at the Cardinals-49ers game in Mexico City in November. This is her first-ever ad.

“I was just like, wow, she’s incredible. Amazing energy. I called the team and said ‘We’ve got to find a way to do this spot.’ We pivoted right before Christmas, and we couldn’t be happier about how it turned out.”

The creative process

To bring it to life, the NFL brought in Bryan Buckley—the Hungry Man director known as the “king of the Super Bowl” for having made more than 65 Big Game spots. Buckley—who only got the storyboards on Christmas Eve, which left little time to pull everything together—said it was a special project from the start, mixing high-intensity action with a meaningful cultural evolution for the league.

“This is one of those spots where people will remember where they were when they first saw it,” he said. “I get emotional about it because the journey to get to this spot is really important. It’s a big, important piece of work. This is a brand saying, ‘This is where we’re going. Get on the train or don’t.’ To me, that’s incredible. So the creative has to deliver on another level.”

That creative kicks off with a fun misdirect. The spot begins like a live interview, as Erin Andrews is seen speaking to Flores about flag football—and then trying to grab her flag, which sets off the chase. 

“We thought that was the perfect way to start,” said Zach Hilder, executive creative director overseeing NFL creative at 72andSunny. “When you see those flags, you can’t help but want to pull them off. It was that little twist. And then we’re off and the fun begins.”

The cameos in the spot are critical to audience engagement, too. There are a number of NFL players, of course—Sauce Gardner, Jalen Ramsey, Aidan Hutchinson, Cam Hayward and Davante Adams (in a parrot suit), as well as Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly. Others making an appearance include tennis great Billie Jean King, viral YouTube star MrBeast, U.S. women's flag team quarterback Vanita Krouch, and Bella Rasmussen, a star high-school tackle football player from California.

“You used to think of a football player as one thing, this big masculine male thing. In the same way, you used to think of a tennis player as one way,” Hilder said. “The way Billie Jean broke those barriers—we wanted to give her a role in this film and actually probably a bigger role in the future of flag football.”

MrBeast, the 24-year-old social media star, is obviously here to reach younger audiences. They originally wanted to show him filming Flores for a video that goes viral—but then realized it would be funnier if he missed the shot because she’s so fast.

“We’re trying to build MrBeast’s fan base. We feel like he needs a few more fans out there,” Buckley joked. (MrBeast has 133 million subscribers on YouTube. The NFL has 10.6 million.)

Crazy. If anyone wants to reach 100M people for less then $7M just let me know 😂

— MrBeast (@MrBeast) February 1, 2023

What the future holds

The focus on flag will continue. The NFL is working to encourage all athletic associations across the country to incorporate flag football in high school. 

“We now have nine states where women’s flag football has been incorporated into the high schools,” Ellis said. “And we have a grassroots and a top-down strategy with all 32 clubs that is aimed at driving youth football across the country.”

Andrews and King will also continue to support flag, Solis said. “Erin is so excited. She will become an ambassador. Billie Jean instantly became a mentor to Diana on set. She’s going to be a major ambassador,” she said. “We’ve already been on this path [of supporting flag], but it’s something that’s only going to grow and build.”

Beyond the strategic aims, Ellis hopes the spot also just connects emotionally with people—this brand with such a masculine legacy making such a high-profile push to be more inclusive.

“Having this very masculine entity be willing to take risks and open up in a human way has helped us bring in more people,” he said. “You always need a confirm-and-provoke strategy. You confirm with your ardent fans that this is still the NFL. But then you reach out to the more casual or even new fans in a way to where they think, ‘I’ve never seen the NFL speak this way. I’m interested now.’ This ad does that. It’s exciting and athletic, but there’s also a level of humanity that I think will really break through for people.”