If you are trying to reach the football fan community, you probably shouldn’t plan a “Madden Twitch Stream” right in the middle of NFL Sunday.
Ladies and gentlemen, the 2024 Presidential Election is next week. That means that politicians are officially in all-hands-on-deck mode, doing anything and everything they can to capture the attention of voters who may still be on the fence. And this year, we’ve seen an unprecedented move by both democrats and republicans to get their candidates on non-mainstream-media platforms.
That’s why you saw democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris go on the Call Her Daddy podcast, and why you saw former President Donald Trump go on The Joe Rogan Experience. By the way, that episode with Trump has already surpassed 34 million views on YouTube. Those are some pretty crazy numbers.
The shift by political campaigns to move to more modern media also created a somewhat weird moment yesterday. An attempt to reach younger voters through a “Madden Twitch Stream” featuring Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz wasn’t received all that well. Mostly because they decided to play their game of Madden right in the middle of Sunday NFL games.
We’re going LIVE NOW on Twitch with @Tim_Walz, join us at 🏈➡️ https://t.co/u9zNReAauY https://t.co/jCYIGYTc90 pic.twitter.com/uX7gAnUAvw
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 27, 2024
Walz and Ocasio-Cortez started the video game stream around 2 p.m. CST in the afternoon. If they were trying to reach NFL football fans, I can assure you that’s one of the worst times to plan something. The time from 2 o’clock to 3 o’clock in the afternoon is often referred to (at least by NFL RedZone fans) as “the Witching Hour,” and typically features the most exciting, game-deciding moments of the NFL slate.
In other words, you aren’t going to convince football fans to leave the actual football games on TV to watch a virtual game streamed live on Twitch during that time.
But Walz and AOC went through with it anyways, with Ocasio-Cortez playing as the Buffalo Bills and Walz – the Governor of Minnesota – playing as the Minnesota Vikings. As they faced off in a low-scoring game, they compared the Harris campaign to Trump’s campaign:
.@AOC and I both know that if you take the time to draw up a playbook, you're gonna use it. pic.twitter.com/4fhwsdWFWe
— Tim Walz (@Tim_Walz) October 28, 2024
Oh, and they originally sent out this post, which said that AOC can “run a mean pick-6.” Football fans know that you can’t “run a pick-6” play… they just kind of happen if the defense happens to be in the right position:
Why did you delete this tweet?
Hahahahahaha pic.twitter.com/6X0B84hqmY
— Dustin Grage (@GrageDustin) October 28, 2024
They ended up deleting that post and just going with the one I included above. Needless to say, deleting the post got a lot of flack (screenshots are forever), and many football fans were critical of the time slot they chose to do this Madden stream.
Something tells me that no time would have been a good time for some people, though I have to agree that deciding to stream during the most exciting part of NFL Sunday football wasn’t the wisest of decisions:
You realize most people are watching real football today, yes? Why would you ever do this on a Sunday? lol
— The🎃FOO (@PolitiBunny) October 27, 2024
Desperate for the Gen Z vote pic.twitter.com/IBMxPwNaoJ
— TechTonik (@TechTonik808) October 28, 2024
Well done on showing us you really don’t care about football. Only to make it look like it. Playing Madden when games are live on TV is blasphemous.
— Mr. Idaho (@IDSurvivalPrep) October 27, 2024
There’s NFL on. Why not do it on a Tuesday?
— Mr. Landman 🇺🇸 (@Bender3352) October 27, 2024
Yea lemme turn off red zone and watch you and Tim Walz play madden https://t.co/PebguRQflO
— Tommy (@tommyob95) October 27, 2024
