The NFL Just Entered the Dog Aisle

Issue #246

September 24, 2025

Quick Hits:

😮‍💨 Gallant is one step closer to putting ready-to-use stem cells on shelves

⚖️ Multiple dog deaths on flights puts pressure on UN to establish international rules

📸 Woof Gang launches dog treat collab with viral dog celebs

🔇 56% of pet food industry professionals have yet to utilize AI

😿 Turns out indoor cats are lacking necessary enrichment

🫰 Cesar Millan is joining the AI race with his smart collar

Philadelphia Eagles fans are currently buying "Jake Elliott's Cheesesteak" dog treats in Eagles green while Tampa Bay supporters reach for "Chris Godwin's Sliders", and this is happening at select independent pet stores across America as football season heats up.

Bocce's Bakery (acquired by Antelope in 2021) has partnered with the NFL Players Association to create something genuinely novel and a first within the pet industry—a limited-edition treat line that merges professional sports fandom with pet parenthood in a way that's driving sales, donations, and social media engagement through the roof.

The collaboration represents far more than a marketing stunt.

For pet industry professionals watching from the sidelines, it offers a playbook in strategic licensing, brand elevation, and tapping into the massive overlap between sports fans and pet owners.

With 68 million dog-owning households in the U.S. (about 51% of all households as of 2025) and roughly half of Americans identifying as NFL fans, the potential market intersection runs into tens of millions of households.

But Bocce's success wasn't just about recognizing this overlap, it was about executing a licensing play that elevated their brand while creating genuine value for consumers.

The Mechanics of the Deal

The partnership taps into a cultural moment where NFL players have become increasingly public about their role as dog parents.

High-profile players like Kirk Cousins, CeeDee Lamb, Patrick Mahomes, George Kittle, Maxx Crosby, and JuJu Smith-Schuster regularly share content featuring their dogs on social media, normalizing and celebrating the athlete-as-pet-parent identity.

Against this backdrop, Bocce's announcement on September 3, 2025, to coincide with NFL kickoff, made perfect sense. The partnership features six NFL players and their real-life dogs across six unique treat recipes.

Each 6oz bag carries the player's name and jersey number, featuring a cartoon illustration of their dog, and nodded to regional food favorites without ever mentioning team names which is a whole ‘nother licensing ball game.

The players chosen for the launch each brought their own authentic connection to their pets, making the promotion feel rather seamless.

When players post about their dogs eating branded treats (especially from a once small-batch treat maker), it reads as genuine pet-parent content rather than pure paid endorsement, not to mention with partial proceeds going to charitable organizations.

Beyond the Logo Slap

What separated Bocce's approach from typical licensed merchandise was the depth of storytelling.

This wasn't about printing a player’s face on existing products. Each element was purposefully crafted to create "distinctive memory structures"—mental shortcuts that make products instantly recognizable and emotionally resonant.

Consider the packaging strategy.

Without access to official team logos (a limitation of player licensing vs league licensing), Bocce's used team-adjacent colors and player numbers to create unmistakable associations.

Eagles fans didn't need an official logo to recognize their team's green paired with "Elliott #4."

The flavor names themselves became part of the narrative, "Jake Elliott's Cheesesteak" for Philadelphia, "Tee Higgins' Tacos" for Cincinnati's speedster.

These weren't random pairings but thoughtful connections between player, place, and palate.

The social media amplification potential built into the partnership proved particularly shrewd. Each player brought their own following and authentic connection to their featured dog(s).

The NFLPA's official socials promoted the "recipes inspired by real players, their pups, and hometown flavors", adding institutional credibility while individual player posts provided the personal touch that drives engagement.

Bocce's CMO highlighted the strategic thinking behind the collaboration, noting how it "show[s] the power of pairing fun and fandom" in celebrating athletes and pups in a wholesome way.

The implied endorsement by pro athletes, even if only via licensing rather than personal testimonials, elevates consumer perception of quality, thoughtfulness and impact by giving back to the community with each sale.

The Economics of Emotion

The financial model behind sports licensing in pet products deserves careful examination.

Industry-standard royalty rates for sports merchandise typically run 8-12% of wholesale revenue.

Add in specialized packaging, potential minimum guarantees to the licensor, and marketing costs, and the margin math becomes challenging.

Yet Bocce most likely structured the deal to protect profitability through several mechanisms.

The pricing strategy was essential. Even though fans have a willingness to pay more for team-affiliated products, the prices are a few bucks cheaper than their own bundles.

Also they can only be purchased as a 3-pack which helps reach minimum quantity runs and gives fans more bang for their buck while feeling good about supporting players and non-profits.

Nearly two-thirds (65%) of pet owners polled have bought a sports team-themed item for their pet, and 90% of those use that item to dress up the pet on game days.

This isn't casual spending but ritualistic purchasing tied to gameday traditions.

The limited-edition positioning serves multiple purposes.

It creates urgency that reduces the need for end-of-season discounting, concentrated marketing spend into a defined period, and capped total royalty exposure.

Bundle strategies maximize average order values on the direct-to-consumer channel.

These bundles cheekily play into the football world as well as team/fandom culture with options including a "Starting Lineup Bundle" of all six flavors, and team-themed bundles:

• "Who Dey Bundle" (Cincinnati)

• "Bird Gang Bundle" (Philadelphia)

• "Tailgate Mafia Bundle" (for Buffalo’s Bills Mafia)

• "Sourdough Stan Bundle" (winking at San Francisco's mascot)

The Fan-Pet Spending Phenomenon

The success of Bocce's launch taps into a broader behavioral pattern.

The humanization of pets continues to evolve beyond preventative care to include pets as participants in family traditions and cultural moments.

Football Sundays aren't just for humans anymore.

Survey data reveals the depth of this integration.

79% of pet parents said they watch sports with their pet, and 83% believed their pet even has a favorite sport—with football being the top choice.

While the idea of dogs having sports preferences might seem a bit personified, it reflects how thoroughly pets have been integrated into household rituals.

The spending patterns in this overlap market show remarkable price elasticity.

Official NFL pet jerseys with players names often retail around $25-35 for a small dog size, easily double the price of a generic dog sweater or shirt. Yet they consistently sell through, particularly in markets with passionate fan bases.

One Mobile, Alabama retailer noted that local’s fanhood of the University of Alabama drives a good chunk of their sales.

This willingness to pay premiums for team affiliation extends beyond one-time purchases like jerseys to consumables like treats, creating recurring revenue opportunities.

A Cowboys fan might buy one team jersey for their dog per season, but could purchase Cowboys-themed treats monthly during football season if their dog enjoys them.

The consumable nature of treats (healthy ones at that) offers a different economic model than traditional licensed pet products.

The total addressable market is substantial. U.S. pet owners spent about $67B on pet food and treats in 2024, with treats alone accounting for several billion.

A licensed novelty treat can unlock incremental dollars on top of regular budgets, as fans view these purchases as special add-ons rather than replacements for everyday treats.

Channel Strategy and Market Dynamics

Bocce's multi-channel approach revealed sophisticated understanding of how different retail environments serve the fan-pet consumer.

The DTC channel allowed for complete experience control, from customized bundles to targeted email marketing.

Bocce's email marketing explicitly billed the treats as "repping Philly in full flavor" for the cheesesteak recipe, language that might not fly in a national chain's messaging but resonated perfectly with their direct audience.

Chewy provided scale and discoverability, exposing the products to millions of pet parents who might not know Bocce's core brand.

The platform's robust review system and recommendation engine could amplify successful products, while its logistics infrastructure handled fulfillment complexity during peak demand periods.

Early customer reviews suggested many pet parents bought multiple flavors, with one reviewer saying that they used this bundle in their MNF tailgating experience.

The selection of independent retailers over major chains deserves particular attention.

Indie pet stores often serve as community hubs where owners know customers' pets by name and their sports allegiances by heart.

These retailers can hand-sell products, create gameday displays, and provide immediate feedback on what's working. They're also more likely to take risks on limited seasonal products and can pivot quickly if certain flavors outperform others.

Geographic concentration likely played a role in retail selection.

Stores in the six featured players' markets presumably received priority, allowing for concentrated marketing support and community activation.

A Cincinnati pet shop could host a "Bengals Pups Tailgate" featuring Tee Higgins' Tacos, creating local buzz that national chains couldn't replicate.

Operational Excellence Under Pressure

The timeline pressure of seasonal licensing cannot be overstated. Missing the NFL kickoff would have severely diminished the products' impact.

Working backwards from a September 3rd launch date, Bocce's likely initiated this project in early 2025 or even late 2024. The approval cascade alone—NFLPA licensing team, individual player representatives, legal reviews for each charity component could consume months.

Product development had to balance creativity with compliance.

Each flavor name needed to evoke gameday foods without making false claims about ingredients.

The Sliders flavor, for instance, contains peanut butter and bacon, requiring clear ingredient labels and allergen warnings while maintaining the playful naming convention.

The treats had to taste good to dogs while maintaining Bocce's natural, wheat-free standards.

Manufacturing presented its own challenges.

Six distinct flavors meant six production runs, each requiring ingredient sourcing (if not already in-house), quality testing, and careful inventory allocation.

Too much of one flavor relative to demand would mean expensive writeoffs; too little would mean disappointed customers and lost sales.

Without historical data (which they have from their over 75 SKUs) for this exact product type, forecasting would require educated guesses based on player popularity, market size, and retailer input.

Measuring Success Beyond the Scoreboard

For pet industry professionals evaluating similar opportunities, understanding how to measure licensing success is crucial.

Leading indicators during Bocce's campaign launch would have included social media reach from player posts, website traffic spikes following launch announcement, product page views and conversion rates on Chewy, and early velocity data from initial retail partners.

Bocce also launched a giveaway on IG where dog owners could win the full lineup of treats + a custom dog portrait from artist Jess Lamworth.

Looking at their custom hashtag (#draftedbybocces) you can see hundreds of adorable submissions of dogs decked out in gameday gear and players posting their own dogs with their custom portraits as well.

Repeat purchase rates will indicate whether the products transcended novelty status.

Geographic sales patterns might show unexpected national appeal for regional flavors, suggesting broader licensing opportunities and maybe even a playoff or Super Bowl push.

Perhaps most importantly, the halo effect on Bocce's core products—whether new customers acquired through the NFL promotion continue buying standard treats—determines long-term value creation.

The qualitative feedback matters as much as quantitative metrics.

Retailer testimonials about customer enthusiasm, social media sentiment analysis, and product reviews provide texture that numbers alone miss.

Did dogs actually enjoy these treats, or was it purely a human purchase?

Did the charitable component resonate with buyers?

Which flavors exceeded expectations, and why?

BarkBox's experience with sports and entertainment collaborations provides useful context.

They reported strong engagement when themes like "Space Jam" or "Peanuts" were introduced, with customers loving seeing beloved franchises in their dog's toy.

This precedent suggested the market was ready for Bocce's treat innovation.

The Playbook for Tomorrow

Bocce's NFLPA collaboration, which both companies describe as "the first officially licensed treat collection to celebrate NFL players and their pups", offers a replicable framework for pet brands considering licensing partnerships.

Success requires more than following a template, however.

The market opportunity at the intersection of fandom and pet ownership is massive and growing, but execution separates winners from expensive experiments.

The key lessons for operators are clear.

First, licensing works best when it authentically extends your brand story rather than contradicting it.

Bocce's natural, playful brand personality aligned perfectly with celebrating athletes and their dogs.

Second, operational excellence matters as much as creative brilliance.

Missing seasonal windows or delivering subpar products destroys the value that licensing creates.

Third, the economics must work at realistic volume levels. Hope is not a business plan; conservative forecasting with upside opportunity beats aggressive projections with downside risk.

Pet owners are willing to pay more for popular brands like sports teams, especially in markets with fierce fandom.

This price elasticity creates opportunities for brands willing to invest in authentic partnerships and quality execution.

Looking ahead, the pet industry will likely see more sophisticated licensing plays.

Perhaps with auto manufacturers, music, airlines (pet travel is way up), and I’m honestly shocked that somebody hasn’t partnered up with Liquid Death to do some variation of a dog water 👀.

The successful brands won't be those that simply rent intellectual property but those that weave it into compelling products that pet parents genuinely want to buy—repeatedly.

The broader implications extend beyond individual brands.

As pet retailers seek differentiation in an increasingly competitive landscape, exclusive licensed products could become a battleground.

For Bocce's Bakery, the NFLPA partnership is poised to achieve some brand elevation, customer acquisition, and a seasonal sales boost.

Whether this becomes an annual tradition or remains a one-time activation, the playbook they've written provides valuable lessons for any brand looking to score at the intersection of cultural passion and pet pampering.

The pet industry's evolution continues to surprise even seasoned professionals.

Who would have predicted that NFL players' dogs would become marketing vehicles for premium treats?

Yet in retrospect, it makes perfect sense.

As pets become fuller participants in family life, they naturally join our traditions, celebrations, and fandoms.

Bocce's Bakery simply recognized this truth and executed against it brilliantly. The only question now is which brand will make the next clever play at this lucrative intersection.

Over the past five years, searches for “cat enrichment” have more than doubled, showing steady compounding interest with sharp spikes in the past 12 months.

This reflects a cultural shift where cat owners are thinking about their pets the same way dog owners have long been marketed to: as beings that need mental stimulation, not just food and shelter.

The 53% jump in the last year suggests the idea of enrichment has crossed from niche cat behaviorists into mainstream pet parenting, creating opportunities for brands to ride the wave with education-led products and content.

For pet industry pros, this isn’t just a toy trend - it’s a category signal.

The data shows owners are searching beyond basics, which means they’re primed to spend on interactive feeders, vertical furniture, sensory toys, and subscription boxes that promise variety.

The spike also hints at seasonality (looks like summer months perhaps when there’s more time being spent at home), so timing campaigns around warmer seasons could amplify traction.

Enrichment is fast becoming table stakes for cat products, and brands that can position themselves as partners in feline wellbeing will capture both wallet share and long-term trust.

See you Friday!