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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYS

July 16, 2019

Matthew Sign

Arlington, Texas

THE MODERATOR: We are now joined by Matthew Sign, the National Football Foundation Chief Operating Officer, Matthew, it's all yours.

MATTHEW SIGN: Thank you, Peter. Good morning. On behalf of our chairman, Archie Manning, our Board of Directors, our dedicated staff and our 12,000 members of the National Football Foundation and College Football Hall of Fame, it is an honor and privilege to be with you here today. I want to congratulate Rickey Dixon of Oklahoma and Vince Young of Texas on their election into the College Football Hall of Fame.

Rickey and Vince will be inducted along with the rest of the 2019 class on Tuesday, December 10th in New York City at the 62nd annual awards dinner.

Also at that dinner we will recognize Mark Harmon with our gold medal, we will recognize the National Scholar Athlete class and we will announce the winner of the Campbell Trophy presented to college football's top scholar athlete which last year was won by Clemson defensive tackle Christian Wilkins who made his mark in this stadium last December at the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic.

I would like to thank the Big 12 Conference and the Football Writers Association of America, make sure all of you are joining for your ongoing support of our programs and initiatives that preserve the past, promote the present, prepare the future, and protect the game and the opportunities it provides everyone.

Make no mistake about it, the game provides a lot of opportunities, and you certainly do not have to play or coach to be involved in the sport of football. Everyone in this room can attest to that.

You can be a trainer, you can be a manager, you can be a sportswriter, you can be a broadcaster, you can be a videographer, work for a conference, et cetera. There is always room on the team if you want to be involved in the sport of football. With that as a backdrop, last year we launched Football Matters. Football Matters is a campaign of positivity to promote the good in the game.

We did this with great success. The biggest take-away we had from year one is that positivity will change perception.

So, again, talking about the good in the game, being good storytellers, you're going to hear me say that a lot. So why were we successful in year one? The college football stakeholders were all on board. We were able to reinforce and build up the promotion of the good in the game. You cannot talk about it enough. Again, there was a lot of good to talk about. We launched a news bureau. We had great PSA placement across the country at every level, high school, college, pro, in-stadium, on all the networks, all the network partners got behind the initiative, and, of course, we were great storytellers. Overall over 600 pieces of original content were created and there was over 37 million social media impressions.

So what are we looking for in 2019 and beyond? Our goals this year are pretty simple: Be a consistent source of good news. Increase the community of supporters. Increase the positive perception of the game. Begin the reverse of the declining trend in tackle football across the country.

We believe we're making steps in that direction. We're going to do it through a deeper storytelling, more original content, and be a true resource or continue to be a true resource for the media. In the coming weeks, at www.footballmatters.org we will open our expert section where you will find a unique perception in the game and anything that goes with it. We are excited about that as all of you should be as well.

So based on our newest study and keep in mind Football Matters was launched with one of the nation's largest research studies to every study the game itself. We did another study for year two.

Again, based on our new study, there are three messages that resonate with the football community and those who want to be involved in the game, whether that's playing or just be associated with it.

Community, everyone loves the community aspect of football. We so it every Friday night, we see it every Saturday afternoon, it's undeniable.

The advances in technology, whether it be helmets, whether it be equipment and certainly the rule changes. They are tweaked every year. All the while, all this is benefitting the great game of football.

So how can you be involved? Again, all of us in this room, whether you are involved as a mascot or someone like Peter, we all owe an obligation back to the sport. We all owe something for why we're here today. So at the very least like, share, contribute at Football Matters. Like, share, contribute at Football Matters. It's a small thing bullet it will make a difference in our game moving forward. And right now I want to share with you our newest state of the game video message.

(Video playing.)

(Applause.)

MATTHEW SIGN: Thank you mascots, appreciate that. Again, in closing, like, follow, share, contribute at Football Matters. It's going to be stuck in your head all day. On behalf of the National Football Foundation, thank you very much for your time and your support. Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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