The NFL and YouTube Team for Celebrity Flag Football Game

The NFL and YouTube are expanding their collaboration on the celebrity-driven flag football game that precedes the Super Bowl, with this year’s game featuring talent — not necessarily the football kind — like IShowSpeed, Kai Cenat, Quavo, and Teyana Taylor.

Why It Hits: Like its ongoing relationship with Roc Nation, the NFL wants to make sure it wins over the hearts and minds of young viewers, especially as most of them enter their adult years without their parents’ cable subscription. By aligning with YouTube (and the creator economy at large), the NFL gets the cultural influence that drives online conversation.

Behind the Plays: The roster for the Creator Flag Football Game in New Orleans ensures that the NFL will be trending all weekend.

• The game will be a face-off between two seven-player teams, led by IShowSpeed (real name Darren Jason Watkins, Jr.) and Kai Cenat, respectively.
• Joining them will be other creators (Khaby Lame, Deestroying), musicians (Shakira, Sexxy Red), retired football players (Cam Newton, Michael Vick), and other prominent athletes (Olympic gold medalist Jordan Chiles).
• The show will feature special guest Jason Kelce, with commentary by ex-NFL pro Andrew “Hawk” Hawkins and sports broadcast journalist Taylor Rooks, all refereed by comedian Druski.
• The game will be exclusively livestreamed on the YouTube channels of the NFL, IShowSpeed, and The Rich Eisen Show.

Final Play: The NFL and YouTube have been hosting a flag football game since 2022, with last year’s reaching 100 million views across platforms — the first year that YouTube became the exclusive retailer of Sunday Ticket (for which Google pays about $2 billion a year). With TikTok on shaky ground in the US, YouTube wants to solidify its place as the creator-centric sponsor of all things football.

And with flag football joining the Summer Olympics in 2028, the game may also be a great cultural primer for the sport itself.