The NFL Makes a Play for Women’s Fashion

The National Football League wants to give its growing cohort of female fans an elevated take on game day gear.

On Monday, the NFL announced it had collaborated with New York-based ready-to-wear line Veronica Beard on a collection of 32 blazers — one for each team — based on the brand’s signature Dickey Jacket. Priced at $998 each, the jackets are more elevated than the rest of the league’s official women’s apparel offer — the customary sporty jerseys, tees, sweatshirts and varsity jackets, which are all priced under $200. The complete collection will retail on Veronica Beard and the NFL’s sites, as well as at Neiman Marcus stores and in NFL stadiums.

It’s the latest example of fashion and sport cosying up to one another. Over the summer, luxury conglomerate LVMH sponsored the Olympics, while brands including David Yurman and Glossier have inked partnerships with the NBA and WNBA. While the NFL has tiptoed into fashion — releasing a collection of sweatshirts with Boss last year, for example — it’s been slower to dive into the conversation as much as other sports leagues. This collaboration marks the NFL’s first big step into women’s fashion in particular.

“This is a real need. This wasn’t out there,” said Renie Anderson, the NFL’s EVP of partnership and chief revenue officer, who estimates women make up 50 percent of its viewership.

For Veronica Beard’s part, plugging into sports — and the NFL specifically, which saw interest among women surge last year thanks in part to media attention on pop star Taylor Swift and Kansas City Chiefs’ tightend Travis Kelce’s relationship — is an opportunity to speak to a new audience. The brand has been in expansion mode: Last year, it surpassed $250 million in sales and opened a number of new storefronts, including in Charlotte, North Carolina and Los Angeles’ ritzy Beverly Hills. This year, it added an outpost in the Hamptons and another in London.

“We’re always looking for white space. When all of the sudden there was the Taylor Swift effect for the NFL, we were like, ‘wait, what do you wear to a football game?’ Your only choice is a large men’s jersey or a lame sweatshirt,” said Veronica Swanson Beard, co-founder of Veronica Beard. “We think you can elevate that.”

The NFL’s Fashion Drive

Fashion represents a huge opportunity for sports leagues, teams and brands.

For the NFL in particular, the opportunity crystalised last season, as more women and young people started tuning in not only to games, but the culture of sports at large. That’s in part due to the growing popularity of high-profile wives and girlfriends of athletes — including influencers Alix Earle (dating Dolphins receiver Braxton Berrios) and Morgan Riddle (girlfriend of tennis player Taylor Fritz) — who have attracted millions of followers as well as deals with high-profile brands like denim maker Frame and Louis Vuitton.

The Swift effect also helped spark a burgeoning interest in game day style as her own ensembles — which included pieces like a Dion Lee corset, bedazzled Area jeans, a sweater from friend Gigi Hadid’s label Guest in Residence and a puffer by fellow NFL WAG Kristin Juszczyk, who then snagged an NFL licensing deal — made headlines.

The league sees the step into fashion with Veronica Beard as a way to offer mainstay fans new — and much needed — fan apparel options and potentially help keep new viewers engaged.

“We had a tidal wave of growth [in women viewers] with the dating situation in Kansas City. It helped younger fans come into the NFL,” said Anderson. “We want to continue to feed that fan, we don’t care how they got there, once they’re here, we want to keep them.”

The popularity of Juszczyk’s designs — puffers, corsets, tank tops, jerseys worked into skirts, patch dresses and stitched coats that centre on stylishness — “was a jolt” that shook up the NFL merch space, said Anderson. More projects with Juszczyk are in the works, she added.

Brands Pile Into Sport

It goes both ways: plugging into sport is also a chance for fashion brands to market themselves to new audiences.

Veronica Beard’s interest in the space was piqued after UT Austin women’s basketball coach Sydney Carter wore a few of the brand’s pieces at games. Soon after, basketball phenom Caitlin Clark, wore a Veronica Beard suit in an interview.

“Our following skyrocketed in a whole new demographic,” said Veronica Miele Beard, co-founder of Veronica Beard. ”Women rising in sports is crazy important right now and relevant.”

The Veronica Beard team thinks this is just the beginning for the NFL and fashion and women: there are plenty of fans who want to get dressed up for games, who have few spirited-but-stylish options. Anderson said the league is open to more brand partnerships, and plans to make more pushes into the industry in time.

“If you think 20 years back about your selection options as a woman for any sport, it would have been something pink … That is not understanding who she is,” she said. “The business will grow if we continue to focus on women in a way we’ve focused on other fans in the past.”