Breitling Announces Partnership With NFL, Launches 34 New Team-Specific Chronomats
Show your loyalty with Breitling’s latest limited editions.
Today’s the start of the fall football season, and just in time for you to show your support for your favorite team, Breitling’s announced a major new alliance with the NFL. This is obviously very big news for Breitling – to celebrate the partnership, Breitling will be – hold on to your helmets – a series of watches for every single NFL team. That’s right, all of them – every team in the AFC and NFC is represented.
There have been brand partnerships in the past with NFL teams and events (including a Breitling Chronomat 42 Super Bowl LVIII, announced last February) and of course, as with any group of highly successful elite professional athletes, American pro football players are often avid watch collectors as well. Tom Brady, to pick just one obvious example, is such a big watch enthusiast that even if you don’t follow football as a fan, you’ve almost certainly come across coverage of his collection, if you’re a watch enthusiast yourself.
However, as far as I know, no luxury Swiss watch brand has ever entered into a marketing partnership with the NFL overall, which makes this something of an historic occasion.
Breitling watches are part of the collections of a number of NFL players, including Detroit Lions running back Jahmyr Gibbs, Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel, and many others. The new debuts mean that both fans and teams will now have a chance to own and wear watches with an official NFL connection and of course, team-specific design details.
For the partnership, Breitling’s chosen its most widely recognized model, the Chronomat, with its distinctive onion shaped crown and bezel rider tabs. The first Chronomat, the famous Frecce Tricolore, was launched in 1983 in partnership with the Italian Jet Team and the rider tabs were originally designed as additional protection for the crystal, at the request of the Team, whose pilots would sometimes crack their watch crystals against the canopy frame while exiting their aircraft.
The rotating bezel on the Chronomat can be used as an elapsed time counter, and to this day you can unscrew and swap positions of the 45 and 15 minute tabs, which lets you use the bezel as a count up or a countdown timer.
The NFL and team-specific details include dial colors, and the team logo in the running seconds subdial at 9:00; the NFL logo is on the sapphire caseback. The movement is Breitling’s in-house B01 automatic chronograph; Breitling launched its first in-house chronograph movement in 2009 and it now uses it widely across its product range.
As with all Breitling watches, the Breitling NFL Chronomats are certified chronometers, 42mm x 15.1mm, 200M water resistant, and with a power reserve of 70 hours. Each of the 32 watches will be produced in a limited edition of 104 pieces, to celebrate 104 seasons of the NFL (2023 was the 104th season and the League was originally founded on September 17, 1920).
At launch, the Breitling NFL Chronomat Limited Editions are $8,800 on a rouleaux-type strap, and $9,200 on a bracelet. Half (52) of each team series of 104 watches will be delivered on a bracelet and half on a strap.