Bengals content team prepares for NFL schedule release video

CINCINNATI — Are you ready for some football? How does a New Year’s Eve Bengals-Chiefs matchup sound?

As the NFL prepares to release its 2023-24 schedule Thursday night, the Bengals are preparing for a creative reveal. In a teaser video released Wednesday morning, Mayor Aftab Pureval joined one of the team's newest additions — former Chief Orlando Brown Jr. — to poke fun at his viral video from the playoffs.

"The Bengals play the Chiefs Week 17," Pureval tells the camera. "And I've got nothing else to add."

The mayor asks Brown if it sounded OK, to which Brown responds, "Yeah, I think it was better than the last time."

As far as what's in store for the rest of the schedule, fans will find out Thursday night.

While it's still the offseason, Thursday marks a showdown between social media content teams in the NFL.

"It's a little bit of a competition, seeing what we're going to do against all the other teams in the league," said Seth Tanner, director of content for the Bengals.

Releasing the schedule is no longer only about dropping dates and locations. It's a whole production. For the Bengals content team, this is like their Super Bowl.

"This has turned into kind of like a creative holiday almost," said lead producer Luke Johnson. "All the teams put their best foot forward."

Social media has changed the game, encouraging teams across the league to get creative with their schedule release videos.

"It’s definitely some kind of competition. Not like outright," said social media coordinator Paige Hutchinson.

Rather, it’s an unspoken competition.

"Definitely in the back of everybody's mind, they want to have the best schedule release video for sure," she said.

A lot of planning and preparation happens behind the scenes to get to the final product. The Bengals content team got together in January to brainstorm ideas.

“We got in a room in January, and we pulled up funny videos, like our favorite videos from whenever we were kids, YouTube videos, and like anything that will spark something," Hutchinson said.

Part of the challenge is knowing what's going to hit. 

"You're always taking a gamble whenever you're trying to be funny on the platforms," Tanner said.

Tanner said thanks to the teaser with Pureval and Brown, the Bengals content team is off to a strong start. The video was well received by fans and has gotten an overwhelmingly positive response since its release Wednesday morning.

"It was great to see that it's gotten picked up by national media already," Seth Tanner said. "It almost feels like we have a leg up, like a head start on the rest of the league."

When the Bengals content team approached the mayor and his team with the idea, Tanner said they were all for it.

"I really appreciate the mayor’s office for participating. You have a funny joke in your mind, and you hope that everybody else thinks it's funny," Tanner said. "So having Aftab and his staff be like yeah, we absolutely loved this idea, we want to participate in it. It's great to see such a positive attitude from them."

Some fans commented on the Bengals teaser video saying they appreciated the self-awareness and sense of humor. The Bengals content team echoed that sentiment.

"They're big Bengals supporters so it's just great to have City Hall back," Tanner said. "And when you do something like this, it's great to see that they have some good humor about all of it."

The hours leading up to the release of the teaser were stressful for the director of content.

"You can imagine the amount of anxiety that's overriding," Tanner said. "You just you feel like you're gonna get a good response, but you don't know until you know and you see the comments coming through."

The content team tells WCPO the schedule release video they'll post Thursday night is the most ambitious yet.

"I'll be really relaxed once the video is done and we have it in front of us, and we get it out there," said Tanner. "But it's all anxiety until that moment."