The NFL’s female-focused WAG campaign isn’t fooling anyone

NFL fans noticed something unusual at training camp this year: The quarterbacks were doing an awful lot of canoodling.

Within days of one another, cameras captured Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert getting cozy with fiancée and singer Madison Beer, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow sitting on the field with rumored girlfriend and model Olivia Ponton, and New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart sharing a "quiet momen t" with girlfriend and influencer Marissa Ayers.

"Wtf is going on?" one X user asked .

"Why are all these QBs hanging out with their girlfriends at practice? Or if this always happened then why is it just now always making the broadcast?" This Tweet is currently unavailable.

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As it turns out, the pattern was not entirely a coincidence.

The viral moments are part of a larger content campaign designed to reach women and younger viewers, a source close to the NFL told Front Office Sports .

The push falls under the league’s "helmets-off" strategy, which focuses on players’ personalities and personal lives rather than only what happens on the field.

"Whether it’s training camp, weekly practice or a major event like the Super Bowl, we look for authentic opportunities to highlight our players and the people who are part of their journey," Ian Trombetta, the NFL’s senior vice president of social and influencer marketing, told FOS .

"The content is authentic, genuine and relatable, and that’s resonated strongly with women and young fans, who are key growth audiences for the NFL." SEE ALSO: How to watch NFL preseason games: Streaming guide To be clear, the highlighting of players' relationships does not necessarily mean the affection itself was staged.

The Chargers told FOS that the team had not planned any formal content around Beer specifically.

What was coordinated was the league’s decision to place more of these relationships in front of viewers.

The business case is fairly obvious: Beer, Ponton, and Ayers collectively have more than 70 million followers across Instagram and TikTok, compared with the NFL’s combined 53 million.

When the league reposted Beer and Herbert’s engagement photos, the Instagram post received more than 500,000 likes — roughly 10 times the engagement of an average NFL post.