NFL Network’s new series, The Timeline, documents defining moments in sports history - from the birth of the NFL as we know it to Brett Favre’s return to Lambeau Field.

Forming a figurative timeline throughout a century of sports, NFL Network wanted to draw in both diehard fans as well as casual-but-curious sports lovers with the show’s campaign. And so it worked with LA-based agency bpg for its print campaign, spotlighting several of those big sports moments with just a single image, a face or a few lines of text.


The new show, airing throughout this month and into January, consists of six hour-long episodes that “chronicle seminal moments that formed the NFL’s storied past, shape the present and, in some cases, set the stage for the future,” said Anne Pierce, senior manager of marketing and creative services for NFL Network.

Episodes cover decades of events, including “The Merger” of National Football League and the upstart American Football League to create the modern-day NFL, the relocation and rebirth of the Giants in the 1960s in “Jersey Guys” and a smuggled tape of Super Bowl XIV that made its way into Iran in 1980.

The print campaign sought to embody that spirit, using colorful imagery on a simple timeline to tell some of those stories.


According to Emmett James, partner and EVP, head of print at bpg, said that his team created 30 posters in a very short time for the new show to hype excitement among sports fans and casual sports watchers alike.

“We were dealing with one of the most iconic sports brands in the world,” said James, “so we approached it with an iconic route for such an iconic brand.”


Each individual poster works alone to tell the story of that episode, but when displayed together, they form more pieces of the puzzle, he added.

“They work as one-offs, but if they’re displayed all six in a row, you can get the complete timeline of events.”

The campaign went live on Dec, 1, in anticipation of The Timeline’s first episode on Dec. 3, “Favre Returns.” “Jersey Guys,” “A Tale of Two Cities,” “The Merger” and “America’s Game and the Iran Hostage Crisis” follow on Tuesdays and Thursdays in December.

[Image courtesy of bpg and NFL Network]

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