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The NFL Is No Longer Hiding the Weaponization of the ‘WAGs’ A not-so-stealth digital marketing campaign is underway at NFL HQ, featuring staged wives-and-girlfriends content targeted towards young women. Photos: Getty Images Sports NFLAre you a young, impressionable female social media user? If so, the National Football League has some fresh, profitable content they would like to serve you. This month, as players returned to their respective training camps to prepare for the upcoming season, their WAGs (wives and girlfriends) came with them. And if you were a young woman scrolling any given algorithm this month, you may have noticed a series of videos of said players at camp being totally in love with their culturally relevant significant other. Because if the league learned anything from the Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce union, it wasn’t eternal love. Rather, it was the revelation that there are boatloads of cash in the pockets of a young female audience that, if manipulated and extracted, could one day be theirs. A 2025 MarketWatch report estimated that Swift alone added nearly a billion dollars worth of brand value to the league, which is why a sinister new scheme is underway at HQ, involving a “coordinated content rollout” of football WAGs, according to a recent report from Front Office Sports. (I love when men in conference rooms use stealth marketing campaigns to convince me to like something!) “On the league and club level, we’ve engaged our players’ families and loved ones for years,” NFL exec Ian Trombetta told Front Office Sports. “Whether it’s training camp, weekly practice or a major event like the Super Bowl, we look for authentic opportunities to highlight our players and the people who are part of their journey.” This “coordinated content rollout” began with a video featuring newly engaged QB Justin Herbert and singer Madison Beer. In the video, the couple can be seen flirting on the sidelines during a Chargers training camp. (The league also boosted the couple’s recent engagement with a series of congratulatory social media posts) Madison Beer and Justin Herbert are two lovebirds spotted at Chargers training camp. pic.twitter.com/krM4Mfnoa1 — Madison Beer News (@madisonchart) August 4, 2026 A second near-identical video followed, featuring Bengals QB Joe Burrow and influencer Olivia Ponton. (Is this a PR relationship? Probably). And again, with Giants QB Jaxson Dart and his girlfriend, Marissa Ayers. Also an influencer. Also at training camp. In the future, staged PDA pictures might be as essential a QB stat as passing yards. Olivia Ponton and Joe Burrow chill after practice. pic.twitter.com/hkG8RfYIKc — Mike Petraglia (@Trags) August 9, 2026 Trobetta added that “The content is authentic, genuine, and relatable, and that’s resonated strongly with women and young fans, who are key growth audiences for the NFL.” However, I would argue that anyone using the term “key growth audience” in a sentence is neither authentic nor “resonating strongly with women.” If they really wanted to make the NFL the new Bravo, they should have just gotten Andy Cohen on the phone and told him to un-scrap his Real Housewives of the Kansas City Chiefs idea (or whatever it was once called). So, will this schtick succeed in creating a larger female viewership? Time will tell. But let this serve as your reminder that the content you encounter in the mysterious world of The Algorithm is not so much mysterious or up to chance as it is deliberate, calculated, and, in all likelihood, an ad.