PepsiCo Beverages North America (www.pepsico.com) is extending its NFL marketing footprint with a licensed merchandise collaboration, pairing the Pepsi brand with sports-fashion startup Off Season to produce 15 collectible miniature puffer jackets sized to fit a standard 12-ounce can. The activation, announced October 15, is the latest execution under the company's season-long "Tailgating Deserves Pepsi" platform and underscores how large beverage brands are leaning into lifestyle crossovers to defend shelf presence and consumer mindshare during the high-volume football season.
The Product
Off Season — co-founded in January 2025 by designer Kristin Juszczyk and entrepreneur Emma Grede — built its profile on viral, fashion-forward takes on official NFL outerwear. For this collaboration, Juszczyk scaled that aesthetic down to can size: each jacket replicates the brand's signature puffer silhouette with working zippers, sleeves, and custom embroidered patches, rendered in official team colors and logos for all 15 of Pepsi's NFL team partners. Those franchises span major markets including the Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, San Francisco 49ers, and New York Giants, giving the program national retail and fan-base reach. The functional novelty — insulating a cold can while displaying team branding — is designed to blur the line between beverage accessory and licensed collectible, a format that has gained traction as consumer-trends data shows fans spending more on experiential and merchandise categories.
Distribution and Tour Stops
The jackets will not hit retail shelves in the conventional sense. Instead, PepsiCo is routing availability through two controlled channels: a national sweepstakes open through November 30 at offseasonpepsisweeps.com, and an in-person Tailgate Tour targeting ticketed fans at stadium perimeters while supplies last. The tour opens October 19 at Levi's Stadium for the 49ers–Commanders matchup, before moving to Lincoln Financial Field on November 8 for Eagles–Giants, and closing November 25 at SoFi Stadium for a Rams home game. The venue selection concentrates distribution events in three of the NFL's largest media markets — San Francisco, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles — maximizing earned-media potential per stop.
"Pepsi has always been at the center of gameday, from the food fans enjoy to the teams they rally behind," said Gustavo Reyna, Vice President of Marketing at Pepsi. "With Off Season, we're turning the Pepsi can in your hand into part of your gameday fit."
Strategic Context
For PepsiCo, the activation arrives at a commercially sensitive moment. The company reported nearly $94 billion in net revenue in 2025, but its North American beverage segment has faced volume pressure as consumers trade into energy drinks and functional beverages. Collaborations that attach the Pepsi trademark to culturally resonant lifestyle brands — particularly in sports, where the company holds Official Soft Drink of the NFL status — are a cost-efficient lever for driving trial and social amplification without discounting. Off Season, for its part, gains distribution scale and legitimacy that a brand launched less than two years ago would be unlikely to achieve independently. The arrangement mirrors a broader pattern in the beverage and foodservice marketing landscape, where limited-edition licensed merchandise increasingly substitutes for traditional promotional price mechanics.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
