NFL cleaning up

NFL cleaning up with first laundry detergent sponsor: Tide

Everybody knows guys love football. But there's a growing number of women who follow the NFL too. Marketers are using the NFL to try to woo female consumers who account for 70% of household purchasing decisions.

Tide has signed up to become the first "official" laundry detergent of the country's most popular and successful pro sports league. In addition, Tide is signing team sponsorship deals with all 32 clubs. That will make Tide the only other NFL sponsor besides Gatorade with the rights to use all team trademarks.

Sundar Raman, P&G's marketing director for North American fabric care, says the deal makes sense for Tide. During the company's research, P&G discovered 90% of NFL teams already use Tide to clean their uniforms and practice gear. NFL teams do over 5,000 pounds of laundry each week, or more than twice as much as typical U.S. houeholds do in a year. Coupled with the NFL's reach with women, P&G decided to pull the trigger, Raman said.

Tide products will start showing the NFL shield logo in August. P&G is also planning an advertising and marketing campaign touting its NFL connection. Raman declined to comment on terms of the deal.

"The NFL is actually the No. 1 sport watched by women in America; No 2. is the Olympics," he says. "They have a really growing fan base of women, with 44% of their fans being women. That, alongside the fact it's the No. 1 most watched sport in America, period, gave us the reach."

Tide has been stepping up its marketing activities in sports. The country's leading detergent brand fired up a quick-turnaround TV commercial after millions of Fox Sports TV viewers saw safety workers using Tide to clean up the track after a fiery jet fuel explosion at the Daytona 500.

That free exposure was one of the best product placements in years. So Tide used footage from the race to send the message: "You keep inventing stains. We'll keep inventing ways to get them out."

Says Raman: "We had a lot of fun with that. I wouldn't saying we're trying to do this on a regular basis with every sport. But we're always on the lookout for a good match where we can showcase the performance of our brand alongside the passion that fans have for their sport. The NFL is obviously a great fit -- just like NASCAR was."

This article was written by Michael McCarthy and appeared in USA Today.