{"id":2091240,"date":"2026-08-13T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2091240"},"modified":"2026-08-13T10:00:37","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:00:37","slug":"why-a-board-game-is-popping-up-across-the-nba-nhl-and-nfl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2091240","title":{"rendered":"Why a board game is popping up across the NBA, NHL, and NFL"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Over the course of my 20-plus years as a sportswriter, I\u2019ve spoken quite a bit about my various non-sports hobbies and interests, with one in particular coming up quite often: I love board games. I loved them as a kid, was reintroduced to the hobby around the time when my daughter was born in 2006, and have never stopped playing them, collecting them (I own over 300), and writing about them. It\u2019s been quite rare, however, to have my interests in sports and board games intersect.<\/p>\n

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Last winter, it finally happened, in a most unusual way, as I got a note from one of the publicists who send me updates from board game publishers that Catan Studios, whose namesake game is largely responsible for sparking our new Golden Age of Board Games, had struck a partnership with the Minnesota Timberwolves. Catan set up a stand on the concourse at select Timberwolves home games, giving away the new Catan on the Road portable game to fans, and had signage at the Timberwolves\u2019 arena as well as a presence on the team\u2019s road broadcasts. I thought there was a story there, because \u2026 why? What possible connection could there be between this delightfully nerdy hobby and an NBA team? The story ended up on hold because I couldn\u2019t visit Minneapolis for one of their Catan nights during the season, but, of course, I wasn\u2019t about to let it go.<\/p>\n

Catan, which was originally called The Settlers of Catan, was designed by Klaus Teuber, a dental technician by day and game designer on the side, and has sold over 45 million units worldwide since its first release in 1995, including the original game, expansions, and numerous spinoff games. Players collect five resources to allow them to build roads, settlements, and cities, gaining victory points for the last two, with bonuses for having the longest road and the largest army. Every turn starts with a roll of two ordinary dice that determines which settlements or cities produce resources, so the game offers a blend of luck and strategy, while there\u2019s a social aspect because players can trade resources with each other.<\/p>\n

At the end of July, I attended Gen Con, the largest board game convention in the Western Hemisphere, which drew over 74,000 attendees to Indianapolis and took over downtown. While there, I had the chance to meet Kevin Hovdestad, the director of brand development for Catan and one of the people I spoke to last winter about the Timberwolves deal. I think I finally got my answer for why a board game publisher would be actively pursuing partnerships with sports teams, along with learning about Catan\u2019s ongoing plans there and how Hovdestad views Catan\u2019s place in the larger board game ecosystem. (Bold<\/strong> is me, everything else is Hovdestad.)<\/p>\n

To take it from the top, how did the Catan-sports partnership thing begin?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I joined Catan in 2024. Right after I started, within days, I happened to get lucky, and I made contact with someone at Excel, the big sports agency out of California. We were able to place a bunch of copies of Catan in their NFL players\u2019 spring training gift baskets. And a bunch of the guys really loved it. That teed up an opportunity. ESPN ran a story a couple months later about Josh Allen and the O-line on the Buffalo Bills playing Catan together<\/a>. We reached out to the team. They had us out for a little meet and greet. So we got quite embedded in the space, just casually.<\/p>\n

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At the beginning of 2025, I\u2019m still talking to Excel. And I went back to them and said that one of the things we\u2019re trying to do is shift towards a younger audience. Who do you have for NIL guys that you have on your roster and do any of them like the game? They send back a list of guys, I pull up a couple of quick trackers, and I find that there\u2019s a couple of these guys that are real likely NFL Draft prospects. So I reach out and we get a couple of them to agree to do sponsored content for Catan during the NFL Draft. Grey Zabel goes in the first round for the Seahawks. When they call him, he\u2019s on screen on the NFL Network with the Catan box right next to him the whole time. It went viral \u2013 it just blew open the doors.<\/p>\n

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\n Grey Zabel with Catan on ESPN\u2019s 2025 NFL Draft broadcast.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When I started, our brand awareness in the United States was only 18 percent, right? And you don\u2019t feel like that when you\u2019re at a show like Gen Con. As soon as I go out into the world, though, I say, I work on Catan, and people are like, \u2018What\u2019s that?\u2019<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sure you get the \u201cBoard games, like Monopoly\u201d question too. And I imagine that\u2019s hard to overcome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re just trying to figure out who\u2019s not playing games and why. And my theory when I started was, there are a lot of people who have a lot of hobbies that involve getting a group of people together. And if I can find people who already have another hobby, another interest, where they get (together) in person with their friends and their family, those are the right people to get interested in a board game. They\u2019re not all going to love it. It\u2019s not going to be for everybody. \u2026<\/p>\n

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{“endpoint”:”https:\/\/api-prd-nyt.theathletic.com\/graphql”}<\/p>\n

I think that there\u2019s a fundamental opportunity here for two reasons. One, these are colossal audiences that are not being spoken to by anyone in the games industry. Just full stop, nobody else is doing this. Two, when we are talking to sports teams, we\u2019re a new category, right? They\u2019re all so burnt out, like, it\u2019s all sports drinks and car manufacturers and insurance companies. I\u2019m like, great, okay. I\u2019ve seen the Allstate logo at every NBA game for 20 years.<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s all \u201cthe official betting partner.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Laughs) I don\u2019t even want to get started on that. It was so heartwarming how quickly the teams that we\u2019ve been speaking to are like, \u201cOh my God, this is so cool, games are great. This is novel. It\u2019s going to be so much fun for our fans and for their kids.\u201d<\/p>\n

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We just finished the season with the Timberwolves. Right away here, sometime later this month, we\u2019re going to be announcing that we are partnering through (tabletop games distributor) Asmodee Canada with the Ottawa Senators in the NHL. We\u2019re talking about having people come out in Catan themed costumes to work the concourse, we\u2019re going to demo games. They\u2019re talking about making us hex-shaped hockey pucks to give away.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s the ultimate goal with being the \u2018official board game,\u2019 or whatever it may be, of various sports teams?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My job is to put the game in front of new people. It is exhausting to be advertised to. \u2026 But we have to still find ways to get this game in front of people where they can discover it and get excited about it \u2026 So getting to go and show somebody how to play a game, having games that we\u2019re putting out that are lighter, faster, more frenetic, so people can have that high energy experience with the game in person while they\u2019re at a hockey game. \u2026 And I will be really honest, the mandate is to sell board games to people who\u2019ve never played a board game. It\u2019s not sell Catan to gamers.<\/p>\n

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Because you\u2019re saturated in this market. Everyone here at Gen Con has played Catan.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right. I\u2019ve got to get people to come in the door for the first time.<\/p>\n

Every sports fan I know has a PlayStation, grew up with games, has made it part of their life. It would be weirder to go into someone\u2019s house and see a shelf full of DVDs than a shelf full of games at this point, frankly. Games are great. Games are cool. And now I think we\u2019re starting to see the crossover of like, all of these athletes and musicians, touring bands, who need things to do and they\u2019ve all started picking up games. It\u2019s a low cost thing they can do, they don\u2019t have to go out, they don\u2019t have to deal with paparazzi, they don\u2019t have to deal with everybody (who) wants to get drunk. You just get to have a good time.<\/p>\n

And you don\u2019t have to be online \u2013 that\u2019s one of the things I talk up when I\u2019m evangelizing for the hobby.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It gets you away from being online. And Lord knows everybody wants that right now. I get it. I\u2019ve gone to great lengths to cut back on how much time I spend on this little misery rectangle (waves phone vindictively). \u2026<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t come into this with some grand plan. We don\u2019t have a bunch of people who have like 20 years of sports background or anything. We have a group of people who love games and understand games and are trying to figure out what do you do when you\u2019ve got to go convince a new person to try a game? How do you find them? How do you get to them? What does that story look and feel like? And I think there\u2019s other places that this can work, right? Like, I just came back from a couple weeks in Europe (at the) beginning of June. We had a meetup with Linkin Park. They love Catan.<\/p>\n

Definitely not a band I would\u2026 I\u2019m stereotyping, obviously. Definitely not a band I thought was going to finish that sentence.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The stereotype is really, I think, one of the things that is working for us because we just get to keep showing up in places that are unexpected, right? When we started doing this, nobody expected that we would go do a sponsorship with a basketball team. Nobody expects that we\u2019re going to work with a nu-metal\/modern-rock band, right? And if we can keep doing that, if I can keep finding creative ways to have the game pop up in these other pockets of culture and entertainment where nobody thought we were going, right?<\/p>\n

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All the stuff we\u2019ve been seeing on social media with the Boston Celtics. We haven\u2019t paid a dime for any of that exposure. They just love it. They\u2019re using it as their rookie hazing ritual or whatever. One guy lost his copy of Cities and Nights (an expansion for Catan), and it was sold out everywhere, so I pulled a copy from my stash for reviewers, hand-wrote a note that said, \u201cDon\u2019t lose this one!\u201d and mailed it to him.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re just having fun with it. It\u2019s not advertising. It\u2019s just genuine joy. They want to play. We want them to play. The fact that they\u2019re also willing to joke about it as they\u2019re getting on their private jet and hold the game up because it\u2019s fun for them.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s organic, and more authentic than straight advertising.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I remember right after I met Josh Allen. We\u2019re leaving, we\u2019re flying home from Buffalo and there\u2019s a little cardboard cutout of him holding up a Snickers bar or something in the airport. They could have photoshopped anything they wanted into his hand. I don\u2019t think that man has ever eaten a Snickers bar. But I\u2019ve got real, honest to God, photos of him with a pair of Catan boxes under his arm walking around because he loves it, right? I had one of my designers working on a custom baby onesie for him and his wife after they just had a baby, right? But we ran out of time.<\/p>\n

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It’s @settlersofcatan<\/a> szn.#BillsCamp<\/a> | #BillsMafia<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/VrzC4k9I0R<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) July 22, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

So it sounds like the Timberwolves deal opened up the door for more sports partnerships?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They call us now and say, \u201cCatan is an option? We didn\u2019t know.\u201d I\u2019ll get outreach from a NBA, NHL, NFL, whatever organization, and they\u2019ll come to me and they\u2019ll be like, \u201cWe could do something, as well.\u201d And every time I just have to turn around and be like, \u201cWho on the team plays? Who\u2019s already a fan?\u201d Because if they don\u2019t know\u2026 I have options where someone does. \u2026<\/p>\n

And this strategy of not taking ourselves so seriously anymore and starting to think about where are the growth audiences, who hasn\u2019t seen Catan, who doesn\u2019t know Catan. May this year, we announced our first license in a decade. We\u2019re doing Bluey next year<\/a>. We\u2019ve done the Star Trek and Game of Thrones Catan games, and those are things for the Gen Con audience, right? You can walk around Gen Con and make Star Trek references in this crowd.\u00a0 But we\u2019re trying to find new people outside of that ecosystem.<\/p>\n

Catan has a reputation within the gaming world as a \u201cgateway game,\u201d something you play with new gamers to introduce them to the hobby and show them that there is more to the tabletop than Monopoly. It sounds like you\u2019re embracing that by aggressively courting people who need that gateway.<\/strong><\/p>\n

We\u2019re not oblivious. The best outcome for everybody is they come in, they try Catan, they enjoy it, and then they graduate to something else.<\/p>\n

Right, they like it and say, \u201cI want another game.\u201d I did.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, right? I want to be their first game. But I want them to own a hundred games over the course of their lifetime. There\u2019s so many great games. But we\u2019ve got to get new people into the hobby. If I can do that, and I can make the group of people who want to have game night a little bit bigger every year, that\u2019s a victory.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m hearing football, hockey, basketball. Have you talked to any baseball teams?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We did a minor league deal with the St. Paul Saints, since we\u2019re right there (in Roseville, Minnesota). We\u2019ve talked to the Royals a little bit, and they\u2019re very motivated. They\u2019ve got their own in-house design agency. One of their ideas for us was they were prepared to salvage all the broken bats all season and turn them into town pieces (Catan pieces have always been made of wood, not plastic). Hyper-collectible, hyper-exclusives.<\/p>\n

The biggest barrier at this point for us is bandwidth. I only have four people working for me! But if this works and this continues to work and we post the kind of numbers we\u2019re posting, we should grow the team. We should get a bigger budget. We should make more of these investments because I think there\u2019s a snowball effect here waiting to happen. I think that once you get, like \u2014 the audience for each sport is different. The person who\u2019s following football and saw the NFL Draft is not the person who saw the Timberwolves activation.<\/p>\n

The people who came to the Catan night for the Timberwolves game, mostly are just Timberwolves fans. A couple of people, I saw a couple of people reselling their tickets online, or people who were posting and saying, I have season tickets, I can\u2019t make it on that night. You can have my seat if you get me the free Catan. And as we get more sophisticated about this and we start to understand what these people want \u2014 we tried, like, here\u2019s an unreleased game. They got Catan on the Road two months before it was on the shelf.<\/p>\n

I know there are players in the Twins organization that play Catan. There are at least three in the Orioles organization. We\u2019ll see if they\u2019re all still there after the trade deadline. I\u2019m pretty sure Adley Rutschman is one of them. He\u2019s not going anywhere. (He was traded two days later.)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

My sort of philosophy on it is that we\u2019ve all reached that point for whatever reasons. Age, cultural shift, too much internet, pandemics, whatever, where everybody just wants experiences. That\u2019s why everybody\u2019s going to a sports game or going to a concert or getting game night together because we just want to do stuff with other people. Anything that grows the hobby is good for all of us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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