Are you ready for some football? Tonight the NFL draft begins, on ESPN, seasonally ushering in the source of America's most popular TV programming — and one of its biggest branding vehicles —back into the cultural discourse.

As we noted earlier, Nike is running with its "Fast is Faster" campaign touting its new NFL uniforms during the 2012 draft. PepsiCo's Quaker Oats brand also kicked off its new status as the "Official Hot Cereal Sponsor" of the NFL yesterday with a Play 60 Youth Football Festival that starred Andrew Luck, the fortuitously-named Stanford University quarterback who is the presumptive No. 1 choice in tonight's draft. 

And Google, not missing a chance to promote its social networking platform, is inviting fans to join the top two draft picks (Luck and Robert Griffin III) virtually via Google+ hangouts. Continue reading...

Following the 20-second teaser that debuted on April 3rd, Nike's 60-second "Fast Is Faster" commercial, above, is being shared first via Twitter and Facebook today, with the broadcast debut in the first round of the NFL Draft on ESPN between the first and second picks. The "Fast is Faster" campaign showcases Nike's new team uniforms for the NFL.

Today marks 100 days to the start of the 2012 Olympic Games in London on July 27th. To mark the occasion, the 2012 USA Olympic Team held an event today in New York City's Times Square, with sponsor AT&T on hand for the celebrations with athletes and fans. AT&T also announced today that it will provide networking services to NBC for its cross-networks Olympics telecasts this summer.

The NFL and Nike have been gearing up for months for the big unveiling of new uniforms for all 32 teams this week, an opportunity for every team to refresh its image and spirit (and make a ton of extra bucks, to boot) — including the NFL.

And while there were plenty who loved the new looks and plenty who didn’t, the general coverage seemed to agree that the uniforms on the whole didn’t change too dramatically.Continue reading...

Big-name fashion designers are flocking to the Olympics this summer, with host country talent Stella McCartney leading the way, in partnership with Adidas, as the chief designer for the United Kingdom’s squad. There have been a few naysayers to McCartney’s designs, but fashion designers have got to be pretty used to that by the time they hit the big-time.

Now word comes, via the Telegraph, that Prada is getting into the Olympics gear, designing uniforms for Italy’s Olympic and Paralympic sailing teams.Continue reading...

As part of its own image evolution, the NFL unveiled its new uniforms today in New York, with a player from each of the 32 franchises modeling his team's look by new league apparel partner, Nike.

According to the Associated Press report, most teams' new cutting edge Nike Elite 51 uniforms (tagline: "Fast is Faster") aimed to combine "tradition with innovation," but one team stood out.Continue reading...

If the Tube system in London confuses you already, you might want to skip heading to England for the Olympics this summer. Just to confuse you a little more, a new map has come out of the Underground with 361 station stops renamed for Olympic greats.

The map is being sold on Transport for London's website prior to the 2012 Summer Games. Each subway stop of the London Underground Olympics Legend map is "renamed" for athletes from different sport, so one is all swimming while another is all track and field. The map was designed by former BBC sports journalist Alex Trickett and sports historian David Brooks.

The duo chose an American athlete to represent the main Olympic venue's stop: swimmer Michael Phelps, whose 14 gold medals make him the most successful Olympian of all time. The station nearby is Cassius Clay, named for the famed boxer who fought in the 1960 Olympics of Rome and won gold before changing his name to Muhammad Ali. Longtime rivals Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal are next to each other, with Fed getting the bigger tube stop.Continue reading...

The NFL is always good at bringing the hype. The league has mastered the buildup of everything from draft day right up to the Super Bowl. So why not put the same kind of effort into the fact the league is about to start seven new apparel deals?

According to Ad Age, the NFL Hype Machine™ is in full drive for the switch, which happens next week, with the event being positioned as “an image evolution.” On Monday April 2nd, “NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will cut the ribbon and ring up the first sale as the league opens an NFL pop-up shop in Manhattan to herald the launch of its new apparel deals,” Ad Age reports. The NFL is referring to the pop-up store — called the NFL Shop at Draft, given than it will be located a few blocks south of the 2012 NFL Draft action at Radio City Music Hall — as nothing less than a "huge NFL energy space."Continue reading...