The NFL opened the 2026 season with its largest creator program to date, positioning digital creators not as promotional supplements but as infrastructure for international fan development across a record nine overseas games.

The strategic framework took shape through 2025 experiments. When the league tested creator-led “Watch With” alternative broadcasts on YouTube, football-focused creator Tom Grossi drew more than 1.4 million viewers for his stream of the season opener. Portuguese-language channel “CazéTV” generated more than nine million views, including replays for the Brazil game. A parallel Twitch co-watching effort underperformed, sharpening the league’s working conclusion: audiences indifferent to football will not convert simply because a creator is streaming it.

Working with creator agency Whalar, the NFL has since concentrated access on creators whose communities intersect with football culture, regional identity, food, fashion or adjacent interests, rather than chasing broad crossover audiences through celebrity alone.

Global Reach, Local Intermediaries

The program’s most prominent expansion this year is geographic. For the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia – the San Francisco 49ers against the Los Angeles Rams at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Sept. 10, streaming on Netflix – the league deployed more than 100 creators and influencers. For the Dallas Cowboys-Baltimore Ravens game in Rio de Janeiro on Sept. 27, it assembled a group of Brazilian and American creators with a combined following above 200 million, including Gabriela Moura (11.5 million TikTok followers), Josh Richards (24.8 million TikTok followers) and Tini Younger (12.5 million TikTok followers).

“For us, it’s really a combination of global and local relevance,” Ian Trombetta, the NFL’s Senior Vice President of Global Social, Creator and Content Marketing, told TheWrap. “There are amazing creators like MrBeast or IShowSpeed whose communities have no borders, but there are also emerging creators within each of our international markets who have a deep knowledge of the local culture.”

International rights flexibility underpins this focus. Trombetta noted last fall that overseas games offer more room to experiment because broadcast rights are less constrained than domestic deals, making them a natural testing ground for creator-led viewing formats.

Creator of the Week and the Access Exchange

The domestic centerpiece remains “Creator of the Week,” a YouTube partnership returning this year with 12 creators receiving behind-the-scenes access to teams, players and game-day experiences. Last year’s edition generated more than 86 million views across YouTube and NFL channels. Zach King, who has 43.4 million subscribers, opens this season’s program at the Kickoff game in Seattle; Jack Mancuso (2.3 million subscribers) covers the Detroit Lions-Buffalo Bills game on Sept. 17; and Chef En Proceso (3.6 million subscribers) is scheduled for the Mexico City matchup in November. Trombetta credited all 32 clubs with embracing the program, giving creators access to facilities, players, and key strategic initiatives.

“Our partnership with the NFL has redefined how the next generation experiences football,” said Angela Courtin, YouTube’s Vice President of Sports and Entertainment Marketing, pointing to the most recent NFL flag football game on YouTube, which drew more than 14 million live views.

The program extends to Snapchat, where two creators will produce season-long content culminating at Super Bowl LXI in Los Angeles. Female creator partnerships with Morgan Riddle, Cherry Beagles and Allie Anthony focus on fashion, fan culture, international games and football fundamentals. The returning “Celebrity Photographer Series” gives credentialed sideline access to actors, athletes, and creators alongside mentorship from the league’s live content team, beginning with actor Joel McHale at the Kickoff game and Olympic snowboarder Scotty James and actor Sam Corlett in Melbourne.

The exchange runs consistently across programs. Creators receive exclusive access the league controls; the NFL receives culturally adapted content at a volume and breadth its internal teams cannot match. NFL-related video accumulated more than 20 billion views on YouTube in 2025, up 250% from 2020, per YouTube data. More than 30% of those views came during the offseason, a pattern the league has built programming to extend throughout the calendar year.

Trombetta told TheWrap the scope will keep growing. “There will be several scaled-up surprises throughout the season as well as at the Super Bowl in Los Angeles,” he said.

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