DAVID GREENE, HOST:
It's that time of year in the National Football League - playoff fever. We are now down to four teams. The NFL remained popular as ever this season. But the brand sure took a hit because of what players did off the field. After Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was seen on a video punching out his then-fiancee, the league's handling of domestic violence became a national conversation. And as NPR's Maggie Penman reports, this led to an unlikely partnership.
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UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Trips - ball is on the ground.
MAGGIE PENMAN, BYLINE: If you watched any football over the weekend, chances are you caught one of these ads.
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ELI MANNING: No more boys will be boys.
PRINCE AMUKAMARA: No more what's the big deal?
PENMAN: Current and former NFL players like Eli Manning, John Lynch and Troy Vincent stare straight into the camera against a white background.
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ANTONIO GATES: No more not on this team.
UNIDENTIFIED NFL PLAYER: No more we don't talk about that.
PENMAN: No More is not just a call to action to end domestic and sexual violence. It's also the name of a group of advocacy organizations and corporate partners who joined in an effort to highlight these issues. They began their public awareness campaign way back in 2009. But last year, when stories about NFL players committing domestic violence surfaced in the news, what was a PR crisis for the league became an opportunity for No More to reach a huge new audience.
VIRGINIA WITT: Engaging both men and women has always been a key goal.
PENMAN: Virginia Witt is the director of No More. The NFL contacted her in the wake of the Ray Rice scandal.
WITT: We see the sports community as absolutely crucial to this strategy. Football is central to American life and families. It's a great way to engage men in this conversation.
PENMAN: Traffic to No More's website has increased by nearly 300 percent since the PSAs began airing during football games in October. And Witt says they've seen a remarkable response from the public on social media. So the message is really getting through to football fans, right?
PABLO TORRE: It's hard to tell.
PENMAN: Pablo Torre is a senior writer for ESPN.
TORRE: What this campaign is trying to do is actively move and shift a culture. It's hard to tell whether fans are really internalizing this and processing it just yet.
PENMAN: But Torre thinks that one particular set of ads might resonate more than others.
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CRIS CARTER: (Exhaling).
PENMAN: The series of ads is called Speechless. And it was an unplanned byproduct of the filming of the PSAs. While the football players were composing themselves to deliver their lines, the cameras were rolling. And while editing, the production team realized how powerful these quiet moments where to watch. Again, Virginia Witt from No More.
WITT: In totally unscripted footage, you see the very human reactions and emotions that occurred in the football players as they thought about these issues and struggled to speak about them.
PENMAN: In this ad, Hall of Fame wide receiver Cris Carter takes a deep breath. He looks around the room, collecting himself, clapping his hands, rocking on his feet. You can hear the director off-camera telling him, whenever you're ready. ESPN's Torre says these ads are able to cut through because they show football players with their guards down.
TORRE: That the most jarring part, I think - is seeing these guys who are paragons of masculinity and machoness being vulnerable and showing human emotion. That's something that you just don't see very often.
PENMAN: The players never do deliver their lines. Instead, words appear across the white screen. Domestic violence and sexual assault are hard subjects for everyone to talk about. Help us start the conversation.
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CARTER: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED DIRECTOR: Ready?
PENMAN: The PSAs will continue to run through the playoffs though the NFL has yet to commit to airing them during the holy grail of commercial airtime, the Super Bowl. Maggie Penman, NPR News.