How Abercrombie became the official fashion partner of the NFL

Abercrombie & Fitch is one of the newest official partners of the NFL. There’s a sentence that, in 2010, you probably never thought you’d read.

The brand has changed a lot in the past 15 years, including a push into NFL merch that started in 2022 and has now led to Abercrombie being named as an official fashion partner of the league ahead of the start of the current season. According to CMO Carey Collins Krug, Abercrombie’s relationship with the NFL has progressed fairly naturally from the start, with fans, players, and the significant others of NFL players all showing interest in the brand over the years.

As an official partner, Collins Krug said she plans to leverage the sponsorship to promote the overarching brand and its products beyond the team merch to the league’s broad audience, focusing especially on meeting the needs of women football fans.

“It’s a little bit less about slapping a logo on a T-shirt, and it’s more about, ‘How do you get the full look?’” Collins Krug told Marketing Brew. “Particularly from a female perspective, so much of what is out there is with sparkles and pink, but we are actually treating females like the fans that they are. They want gear that is designed specifically for them.”

NFL, but make it fashion

Abercrombie didn’t run straight into the end zone with its NFL merch. Three years ago, the company started selling products for just a few teams through a merchandising agreement with the league, according to Collins Krug, and after “incredible reception” from athletes and fans alike, Abercrombie eventually increased its NFL products to encompass all 32 teams while also leaning further into football in its marketing.

By 2024, Abercrombie was full-on rushing. The brand partnered with Christen Harper Goff, an actress and model who’s married to Detroit Lions quarterback Jared Goff, for a pregame styling event that was featured in the Netflix docuseries Quarterback. On the heels of that activation, the league invited Abercrombie to host a pop-up shop at the 2025 Super Bowl, which was a resounding success, Collins Krug said.

“It was the No. 1 store for the day for us in the world,” she said.

After that, the NFL asked Abercrombie to be its first official fashion partner, and Collins Krug and her team said “of course,” she told us. For the retailer, the partnership with the league represents a new way to reach Gen Z and millennials.

“The NFL very much owns that weekend in terms of culture and sports,” Collins Krug said.

She also hopes the sponsorship will boost Abercrombie’s NFL merch business, as well as serve “as a halo for the entire brand.”. For the league, the partnership falls in line with a recent push to connect with that same demographic Abercrombie is aiming to reach, and especially women.

Running back to runway

Part of Abercrombie’s work with the NFL is focused on partnering with athletes in the league for initiatives like the Abercrombie Style Concierge, a program that gives certain players access to the brand’s in-house stylists. San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner, New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye, Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Cooper DeJean, and Dallas Cowboys tight end Jake Ferguson are among the athletes already participating in the program.

Those athletes, along with several other players known for their fashion choices, were featured in a national campaign tied to the start of the sponsorship, which the company described as the “largest advertising investment the brand has made in the sports space.”

Collins Krug said her team hardly had to tackle athletes to get them to participate. “Since our launch, we have had multiple inbound requests for other players to be a part of this,” she said of the Style Concierge, adding that there have also been requests for significant others to get involved.

While Abercrombie’s business skews toward women, according to Collins Krug, the campaign is meant to appeal to “certainly the athletes and the players and their sphere of wives and girlfriends, but then also fans in general,” she said.

As the season progresses, “there are a number of beats that we’re very excited about,” Collins Krug said, including the brand’s partnership with the Cowboys, which she plans to tie in more significantly with the Style Concierge moving forward. And while the specifics are still in the works, she said Abercrombie will definitely have a presence at the Super Bowl again in 2026.

“We want to continue to build on this program and really the deep relationship that we have with the NFL,” Collins Krug said. “This is truly only the beginning.”