NFL putting permanent Experience in Times Square
NEW YORK — The NFL is taking its game to Times Square. Literally.
NFL Experience will open to the public in the mecca of Manhattan on Friday, one day after a grand opening that Commissioner Roger Goodell and assorted football celebrities and Hall of Famers will attend. While this Experience is patterned after the exhibits the league has done for years at the Super Bowl and draft, it has a new and different feel thanks to a partnership with Cirque du Soleil.
“Cirque du Soleil has been involved with our team on things and with the Super Bowl,” says Dawn Hudson, the league’s chief marketing officer. “We wanted to not just do an experience like anything else, but to have creativity and imagination and to really think about the things we would do. We thought about the power of what we know about the NFL and to try to reimagine that with a company that looks at the world in a totally different way could create magic for the fan.”
A $30 million project that has taken 2½ years in development, the Experience has something for kids, teens, and adults, mixing high-tech and traditional displays into an immersive attraction.
Want to read about and see clips from your favorite franchise, or view memorabilia? There’s a room for that, whether through tablets or visual displays.
Want to virtually dress up in full uniform and equipment like a player from your team? Do drills as if you were a draft prospect at the NFL combine? Take a history lesson of football — sort of an NFL101 — or create a touchdown celebration dance? Go ahead, there’s a place for all of that, too.
Visitors can act the part of coach and quarterback with the help of Jon Gruden as he calls and diagrams a play (Dice Right 61 Bullseye X Individual), then allows fans to run the play on a video screen.