Lowe's added big names to its NFL roster this year.
Year two of "Earn Your Sunday" signs on Defensive Player of the Year Myles Garrett and Green Bay quarterback Jordan Love.
Saquon Barkley and C.J. Stroud from the original lineup are out.
Justin Jefferson, Christian McCaffrey, and Dak Prescott return, which leaves the headcount at five.
Garrett gives Lowe's its first defensive name, and Love opens up Green Bay.
The platform runs on the same concept as year one.
Knock out home projects during the week, and your Sundays are yours.
Lowe's is in its eighth consecutive season as the NFL's official home improvement partner, with Dentsu Creative handling the campaign.
The idea is to connect each player's on-field style to the products fans see them using, then put those same items in shoppers' hands.
It's a formula Lowe's has used before.
The swap points to a bet on different markets, with Cleveland and Green Bay in and Philadelphia and Houston out.
"At Lowe's, our ambition is to be the most helpful brand in home improvement," Jen Wilson, Lowe's SVP and CMO, said in a press release.
"That's what 'Earn Your Sunday' is all about: Helping fans get the job done so they can put the tools down and enjoy a Sunday well earned."
Helpfulness is a claim every home improvement retailer makes, so Lowe's has to prove it through product placement that fans can act on.
The five-player lineup is the delivery system, and it puts the burden on sports marketing to do what a store aisle can't.
Toolboxes and Tailgates
The Kobalt NFL Mini Toolboxes, licensed for all 32 teams, are returning after selling out in their first run.
They're now available online and in select stores, with more limited product drops planned throughout the season.
MyLowe's Rewards and MyLowe's Pro Rewards members get early access and member-only releases as part of the deal.
The "Earn Your Sunday Tour" is also back.
It brings back an EA Sports Madden NFL 27 station and four new activations from P&G Cleaning, Spruce, LG, and EGO to Lowe's stores and NFL stadiums nationwide.
Starting September 9, members can enter for a chance to win a trip for two to Super Bowl LXI in Los Angeles. The package includes:
- Airfare
- Hotel
- Tickets
- Tailgate passes
- $1,000 prepaid card
- 200 additional winners receiving $10 gift cards
Lastly, Lowe's is also stepping up its national visibility as the presenting sponsor of NBC's Football Night in America.
This approach gives the campaign a weekly spot in front of viewers apart from the store visits and stadium activations.
A weekly pregame slot puts Lowe's in front of the same audience every Sunday for five months.
That's cheaper repetition than buying spots game by game, and it's the kind of media placement that does the work a single campaign flight can't.
A Loyalty-First Football Strategy
Lowe's is turning its rewards program into the campaign's backbone, and that's the more interesting story here.
Sponsoring the NFL is getting more expensive to stand out in.
NFL team sponsorship revenue climbed 8% to $2.7 billion in the 2025 season, according to SponsorUnited.
Roughly 440 new brands came into the league that year, so a jersey patch and a stadium banner don't buy much separation anymore.
Here are three moves that turn a season-long sponsorship into a customer list:
- Reward loyalty members before the general public. Early access and member-only drops give a sponsorship a job it can measure, which is signups.
- Use limited product drops as a content calendar. A sold-out run gives a brand a reason to return to the same audience every few weeks across a full season.
- Push the campaign past owned channels. Pairing in-store activations with a national broadcast slot reaches the fans who stay home on Sundays.
The open question is whether two new faces can hold the same attention that Barkley and Stroud pulled in year one.
Our Take: What Happens When the Toolbox Becomes the Reward?
What we like here is how Lowe's is selling the 15 minutes before kickoff when the yard finally looks right, and that's sharper territory than any jersey patch.
We think that the Kobalt toolbox is doing the heavy lifting.
A licensed box in team colorways is something fans hunt for, and the hunt requires a MyLowe's login.
Scarcity worked once, and repeat sellouts read as under-supply just as easily as urgency.
But Lowe's has a full season of drops to prove which one it is.
Membership numbers are the metric to watch here.
If signups move, Lowe's has found a reason for fans to open an app on a Tuesday, and that's rarer than an NFL sponsorship.
Marketing efforts that connect a cultural moment to a core brand truth are rare and hard to execute.
These top creative agencies in our directory specialize in finding those connections and building campaigns around them.
