January, 28 2015, 11:45am EDT
NFL Marketing to Kids is Out of Bounds
Groundbreaking report exposes league’s intensive and harmful campaign to target children
WASHINGTON
At a time when NFL profits are threatened by declining participation in youth football, a groundbreaking new report from Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood exposes how much the National Football League has ramped up its direct marketing to children. OUT OF BOUNDS: The NFL's Intensive Campaign to Target Children details how the league advertises to children: online, on children's television stations, in schools, and in partnership with trusted nonprofits and government agencies serving kids and families. The NFL's new strategies to woo kids have serious consequences, including increased sedentary screen time, exposure to junk-food marketing, loss of valuable instructional time in school, encouraging gambling behaviors, and exposure to the league's off-the-field controversies.
"Even as parents are rightly concerned about letting kids play football, the NFL is threatening children's wellbeing by employing a 360deg marketing strategy to maximize its current audience and ensure a host of future fans," said report author Josh Golin, CCFC's Associate Director. "The league's focus on children is designed to immerse kids in sedentary video games and other media, sell them on junk food, and hook them on fantasy sports."
Among the report's findings:
- Encouraging kids to play fantasy football is a major component of the NFL's marketing to children, despite the fact that playing fantasy sports is a form of gambling. The league offers cash and other prizes for its fantasy contests, giving kids a vested interest in the outcome of NFL games. The league even promotes fantasy football in elementary schools. Gambling at a young age is a risk factor for problem gambling later in life.
- The NFL relies extensively on government agencies and trusted nonprofits to promote its brand to children. Fuel Up to Play 60, a joint NFL initiative with the National Dairy Council (NDC) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to promote healthy eating and physical activity, allows NFL marketing to reach nearly two-thirds of all U.S. school children. The initiative's wellness messages are completely undermined by the NFL's promotion of sedentary screen time to kids and its partnerships with McDonald's and other purveyors of junk food.
- The NFL markets media properties aimed at children in order to promote interest in its teams, its players, and its televised broadcasts. The league maintains an online marketing hub for children six to 13 called NFLRUSH with 3 million registered users. It also created NFL Rush Zone, an animated television series currently on Nicktoons, that is actually a program-length commercial for the NFL.
- The NFL has produced and distributed branded teaching materials designed for elementary school classrooms. These materials claim to teach subjects like math and language arts but their real purpose is to promote the NFL's brand to children. All the vocabulary words in one set of lesson plans are either basic football terms like "huddle" or "quarterback," NFL football team names, or characters on the NFL's Nicktoons show.
- Children exposed to NFL marketing are also routinely exposed to the league's use of derogatory racial terms like "Redskin" as well as players who are involved in its off-the-field incidents. The league's elementary school materials make references to "Redskins." The cartoon NFL Rush Zone actually features a character who is referred to as a "Redskin." In addition, guest stars on NFL Rush Zone include Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson, the players involved in the NFL's most publicized domestic violence incidents.
"The NFL is a league that produces adult content and adult controversies," said Cara Wilking, an author of the report and a public health attorney. "It has used its star power to infiltrate schools, government agencies, and trusted non-profits to target kids in ways that expose them to inappropriate content ranging from games that encourage problem gambling to alcohol advertising. This report demonstrates the pitfalls of partnering with the NFL and makes it clear that it's time for organizations that care about children to sever ties with them."
The report demands that the NFL stop targeting children. It also calls on the NFL to immediately stop promoting fantasy football to kids, on Nickelodeon to stop airing NFL Rush Zone and other NFL-affiliated media properties on its networks, and for educators to stop using all NFL-sponsored educational materials.
To download the full report, please visit https://commercialfreechildhood.org/sites/default/files/outofbounds.pdf. The report's executive summary can be read here.
Additional Quotes:
Ray Halbritter - Oneida Nation Representative and Nation Enterprises CEO about the Washington NFL Team Name: "The marketing of this racial slur has had - and continues to have - very serious cultural, political, and public health consequences for Native American children across the country. The NFL is a publicly subsidized $9-billion-a-year brand with global reach, and it is using those public resources and that brand to promote a dictionary defined racial slur. Native American children do not deserve to be treated as targets of a racial slur by one of the most famous and powerful brands in the world. They deserve to be treated as what they are: Americans."
Ryan J. Martin, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Education and Promotion at East Carolina University: "It is certainly concerning that the NFL is actively promoting fantasy football with cash prizes to children. In our study, we found that college students who participate in fantasy sports for money were more likely to experience gambling-related problems."
Michele Simon, J.D., M.P.H. - President of Eat Drink Politics: "Far from sending healthy messages, the Fuel Up to Play 60 program heavily promotes high-sugar dairy products, like chocolate milk, in direct conflict with the federal government's own dietary guidelines and common sense. In addition, Fuel Up to Play 60 promotes the NFL - and by extension all of its junk-food partners, including McDonald's, Pepsi, Frito Lay, and Mars - to a majority of U.S school children. It's time for the USDA to sack this ill-conceived and harmful program."
Casey Hinds - Parent of two and blogger, US Healthy Kids: "The NFL should work on fixing its own problems instead of helping McDonald's tell kids fast food is lovin'."
Fairplay, formerly known as Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, educates the public about commercialism's impact on kids' wellbeing and advocates for the end of child-targeted marketing. Fairplay organizes parents to hold corporations accountable for their marketing practices, advocates for policies to protect kids, and works with parents and professionals to reduce children's screen time.
LATEST NEWS
Corbyn Accuses Starmer Government of ‘Echoing Tony Blair’s Obedience to Washington’
"Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery," Corbyn said. "Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps."
Mar 03, 2026
As UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer allows British bases to be used as part of the US-Israeli war against Iran, the former leader of his Labour Party says he's making the same mistake that another Labour PM made 23 years ago.
Jeremy Corbyn, the socialist member of Parliament who led Labour from 2015 to 2020, said on Tuesday that Starmer was "echoing Tony Blair’s obedience to Washington", referring to the then-prime minister's decision in 2003 to join US President George W. Bush's war in Iraq.
"Ignoring the wisdom of ordinary people who could see the catastrophe ahead, Blair dragged the UK into an illegal war that triggered a spiral of hatred, conflict, and misery. More than a million Iraqi men, women, and children paid the price." Corbyn wrote in a Tuesday piece for the democratic socialist publicationTribune.
Infamously pledging to Bush, "I will be with you, whatever," Blair helped to promote the false claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. And despite a lack of support from the United Nations, he joined Bush's "coalition of the willing," committing 46,000 British troops to the war.
"This was the last time a Labour prime minister blindly backed the wishes of the US and its warmongering president," Corbyn said. "Twenty-three years later, another Labour prime minister is doing his best to follow in Blair’s footsteps and drag us into a catastrophic, illegal war."
Unlike Bush, US President Donald Trump has not yet put boots on the ground in Iran, instead waging a destructive campaign of aerial bombings and missile strikes that have taken out the nation's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and other senior Iranian officials.
As of Monday, the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), a US-based monitor of human rights in Iran, reported that at least 742 civilians had been killed since Saturday by US and Israeli attacks, with nearly 1,000 injured and more than 600 deaths still under review.
While Starmer has stressed that the UK "had no role" in launching the war, he has lent credence to the questionable case the US and Israel have made to justify it, including emphasizing that Iran "must never have nuclear weapons."
Iran has always contended its nuclear program was not for military purposes, and it had no desire to produce a nuclear weapon. Prior to Saturday’s strikes, reports indicated that Iranian negotiators had offered to give up the nation's entire stockpile of enriched uranium.
And though he has accused Iran of launching "indiscriminate strikes" across the Gulf, Starmer has been reticent to criticize similar actions by the US and Israel, which have had vastly larger death tolls, including the bombing of a girls' school that reportedly killed 165 people, most of them girls between ages 7 and 12, and attacks on several hospitals.
One day after the first strikes were conducted, and following mounting pressure from Trump, Starmer announced that he'd given the US approval for "specific, limited defensive" use of three Royal Air Force (RAF) bases—Fairford in England, Akrotiri in Cyprus, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean—in order to destroy Iran's missiles "at source" after a drone hit Akrotiri, causing minimal damage.
However, Starmer continued to claim that the UK had learned the "mistakes of Iraq," and "will not join offensive action now."
Corbyn said that Starmer's insistence that bases would only be used "defensively" was merely "meaningless vocabulary that reveals Starmer’s contempt for the intelligence of the British people."
In Parliament on Monday, Starmer said that "the use of the bases is to allow the US to use its ability to take out the ability of Iran to launch the attacks in the first place."
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday used similar reasoning to justify launching the war, explaining that Iran was likely to retaliate against a planned Israeli attack and that it therefore posed an "imminent threat" to US personnel even though that threat was contingent on Israel attacking first.
Corbyn described the idea of a "preemptive strike" as a contradiction in terms. "Under this convoluted reasoning," he said, "almost any attack on anybody can be classified as a defensive measure. Starmer’s words are Newspeak—and cannot shield his government from complicity in the devastation ahead."
Like in the United States, the British public has expressed low support for American and Israeli actions against Iran. According to a YouGov poll published on Monday, 49% disapprove of US military action, compared to 28% who support it. Fewer than 1 in 5 Labour voters said they supported it.
Voters also said they oppose their government's involvement. Compared with just 32% of Brits who said they supported letting the US use British bases, 50% said they opposed it.
"For too long, Britain has blindly followed the US as it indulges in disastrous imperial fantasies," Corbyn said, noting the UK's continued support for Israel over two years of US-sponsored genocide in Gaza.
Corbyn is now an independent MP who co-founded a new political party after being thrown out of Labour in 2020 over dubious accusations of antisemitism, which he has alleged stem from his strong criticism of Israel.
"It’s time to forge a different path. Now is not the time to try to rescue a ‘special relationship’ characterised by impunity, genocide, and war," he said. "Now is the time to forge an independent foreign policy based on international law and peace."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'It's Not What F*cking Happens to Them—It Happens to Us': Graham Platner Emerges as Potent Anti-War Voice
"It is the American people who are asked to make the sacrifice," said the Senate candidate. "It is never those in power. It is never those with wealth. It is always asked of us."
Mar 03, 2026
As the death toll in the US and Israel's assault on Iran rose to nearly 800 on Tuesday and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle pushed for the passage of a war powers resolution to stop President Donald Trump's "horrific war of choice," US Senate candidate Graham Platner, a Democrat from Maine and a combat veteran, is speaking out loudly against another war of choice by the United States.
In a new video posted on social media, Platner noted that his 2026 rival, Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), recently said the US should attack Iran only "as a last resort"—something that did not come to pass, according to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who admitted Monday that the US and Israel waged war due to an "imminent threat" posed by the fact that Israel was planning an attack that Iran was likely to retaliate against.
Platner said Rubio's comments pointed to "quite possibly the most ridiculous excuse for starting a war" and warned that the situation is "spiraling out of control" before emphasizing that Collins "has the power to stop this."
Collins has been named as a potential Republican "yes" vote for the War Powers Resolution that Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has said he'll bring to the Senate floor this week.
"Sen. Collins, I'm just going to ask you straight up," said Platner. "You voted to send me to Iraq. Did you not learn anything from that experience? You need to stand up. The American people do not want this war."
Polling out Sunday showed that just 25% of Americans support the US attack on Iran, and Platner's comments to Collins were just his latest in which he tied Trump's war to the unpopular wars in which Platner himself fought and lost numerous friends.
"They are willing to sacrifice the lives of young American men and women and the lives of Iranian civilians simply to protect their political interests," Platner said at a campaign event in Brewer, Maine on Monday, accusing Trump of waging war partially to distract the public from the Epstein files.
"I cannot think of a more reprehensible act," he said. "I cannot think of a more unpatriotic act, of a more un-American act, than to send our sons and daughters off to die, to kill, to bring immense violence to innocent civilians abroad simply because you're afraid you might lose the midterms. It is disgusting."
Thank you to all who joined us in Brewer yesterday to fight to stop this senseless war.
Full remarks and video below.
*********
First, I want to say thank you to Food and Medicine for having me. The work of Food and Medicine, the Eastern Maine Labor Council, quite frankly,… pic.twitter.com/mi3BqmyuGl
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) March 2, 2026
He continued:
It is the American people who are asked to make the sacrifice. It is American families who have to bury their dead sons and daughters. It is American friends who have to watch their best friends come home from a war and struggle for years with physical and mental trauma.
That is who bears the brunt of all of this. It is never those in power. It is never those with wealth. It is always asked of us. And that is why we need to only wage war when the American people know it is actually in their best interest. And if it isn't, we do not do it. This war needs to end. And it needs to end now.
[...]
Watching people who do not know the realities of war, watching people who know nothing of the horror that comes with this kind of violence, people who could not even imagine what it feels like in the pit of your stomach when you hear that one of your friends has been killed; or watching one of your best friends be ripped apart by explosives; watching people who have no idea what any of this looks like or feels like celebrate this, disgusts me. And then watching them turn around and tell us that these sacrifices are just "what happens." We just need to be prepared for more casualties, because that's "what happens." It's not what fucking "happens" to them. It's what "happens" to us.
Platner emphasized that the ongoing assault on Iran "is only possible because we have had a Congress that for decades has abdicated its responsibility, its constitutional responsibility, in making war," and demanded that the 2001 Authorization of Use of Military Force be repealed and that Congress go further than the War Powers Resolutions that have been proposed to to rein in Trump's attacks in the Middle East as well as Latin America.
"We need a truly reformed War Powers Act, where we really pull the power back," said Platner. "We need to know why military force is used right off the bat. And it needs to be approved by Congress right off the bat. The Constitution is clear about who is supposed to have the power of waging war in this country. It is the body that is most representative of the American people because it is the American people who have to bear the brunt of combat."
He closed his remarks with a moment of silence for the American service members and hundreds of Iranians who have been killed in Iran in recent days.
"Working people in this country, working people in Iran, working people around the world have everything in common with each other," said Platner. "All of our needs are exactly the same. And we are used as pawns in the games of the powerful and the wealthy."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Trump Threatens Full Trade Embargo Over Spain's Refusal to Be Complicit in Iran Attacks
Ripping the US president's "flagrant disregard for European sovereignty—and security," co-general coordinator of Progressive International declared: "Close the bases. All of them."
Mar 03, 2026
President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to cut off all trade with Spain over the Spanish government's refusal to allow US aircraft to use its military bases for the war that the United States and Israel are waging on Iran.
Speaking with reporters at the White House beside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz just after noon Eastern time, Trump initially signaled that he'd already taken action against Spain, but less than 10 minutes later, the president suggested he was still deciding.
Referring to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who was also in the room, Trump said: "Spain has been terrible. In fact, I told Scott to cut off all dealings with Spain."
Trump claimed that "it started" last year, when every other NATO member caved to US pressure to aim for spending 5% of gross domestic product on defense by 2035, "and Spain didn't do it."
"And now Spain actually said that we can't use their bases. And that's all right. We could use their base if we want. We could just fly in and use it. Nobody's going to tell us not to use it. But we don't have to. But they were unfriendly," the president continued. "Spain has absolutely nothing that we need other than great people. They have great people but they don't have great leadership."
Again complaining about their refusal to commit to 5%, he said that "we're gonna cut off all trade with Spain. We don't want anything to do with Spain."
However, just minutes later, while referencing the recent US Supreme Court ruling against his sweeping tariffs, Trump said: "As an example, we talked about Spain. I could, tomorrow, stop, or today even better, stop everything having to do with Spain. All business having to do with Spain, I have the right to stop it—embargoes, do anything I want with it. And we may do that with Spain."
Both sets of remarks were swiftly denounced by a range of critics. The anti-war group CodePink declared: "Ludicrous. The US is threatening to stop all trade with Spain to force them to spend more money in an effective US weapons cartel. This is only normal in a war economy."
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, called out Trump's threat to use Spanish bases without permission. Sharing a clip on social media, he said, "Trump openly threatens the territorial sovereignty of yet another NATO ally.
Zeteo journalist Mehdi Hasan similarly responded: "He is a 19th century imperialist. Or at least talks like one and wishes he was one. 'We could just fly in' to Spain, against the wishes of the sovereign national government? That's literally an illegal invasion and brazen violation of international law."
On Monday, David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, welcomed Spain's decision and argued that "Europe should close all of the US bases on its soil."
After Trump's Tuesday comments, Adler said: "Flagrant disregard for European sovereignty—and security. Enough. Close the bases. All of them."
"Holy shit—Trump said this while sitting next to Friedrich Merz?!" he added. "Total European humiliation. Truly abject."
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur focused on the occupied Palestinian territories and a target of Trump administration sanctions, responded to the US president by praising the "strength" of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
"The peoples of Europe do not want to be complicit in a system that kills children and protects those who profit from their blood," Albanese said. "Europe deserves better, and you are already part of that change. Thank you."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular