Troika Design Group is helping usher in a new American tradition "NBC Sunday Night Football," which marks a historical shift in sports programming as the National Football League's (NFL) broadcast showcase moves to Sunday nights on NBC.
NBC Sports tapped Troika Design Group to develop the overarching branding and design language for NBC's coverage of the NFL on Sunday nights. The evening consists of two shows: "Football Night in America," the studio show hosted by Bob Costas, and "NBC Sunday Night Football" game coverage featuring sports legends Al Michaels and John Madden. The line-up premiered on September 10th.
"We're thrilled to be part of this all-star team," said Mark Bohman, Partner and Executive Creative Director at Troika. "This is a huge initiative and collaboration with the internal creative department at NBC Sports. It has been a great challenge quarterbacking the identity and visuals for this important project. 'NBC Sunday Night Football' reaches a massive audience every week across the nation, so having the opportunity to brand this iconic slice of American culture was a fantastic experience."
Troika's assignment was to create a unifying conceptual foundation and design approach that would allow both "Football Night in America" and "NBC Sunday Night Football" to share an identity and theme, while giving each its own unique personality and tone.
"Our solution was the creation of an icon for NBC's NFL programming. This mark is instantly recognizable as the cornerstone for the property," said Gilbert Haslam, project Creative Director/Designer at Troika. "In addition to the logo identity, we developed an overall design concept of 'illumination.' This sets a tone emphasizing the drama and excitement of this primetime NFL spectacle, played under stadium lights. The assignment provided us with the opportunity to showcase our passion for design and sports."
Troika delivered HD graphic animations for "NBC Sunday Night Football" in 1080i, including logo animations, bumpers, team transitions, and scoreboards, as well as key graphic elements used throughout the game such as player line-ups and bios, a score bar system, team match-ups, replay wipes and a family of backgrounds. For "Football Night in America," Troika created a series of computer-generated scenes featuring a signature skyline across America, as well as the hero logo resolve, plus team and city transitions.
"NBC Sunday Night Football" further solidifies Troika's position as sports branding specialists. This new brand follows other high-profile sports campaigns conceived and developed by Troika, including ESPN's SportsCenter, College Basketball and College Football franchises, the NFL Network's latest look for Total Access, FOX Sports Net's Final Score, and the EMMY Award-winning 2004 campaign for ESPN25.
NBC's "Football Night in America" studio show airs Sundays at 7pm EST, followed by "NBC Sunday Night Football" at 8:15pm EST.