Why the Denver Broncos' home opener against the Pittsburgh Steelers is even bigger this year

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — On Sunday, the 259-day drought ends. For the first time in 2024, the Denver Broncos will play a meaningful regular season game at home in the Mile High City.

That calls for a celebration.

“It’s definitely a major milestone,” Broncos’ Chief Marketing Officer Hailey Sullivan told DNVR in an exclusive interview. “We are welcoming fans back into the regular season. That warrants a lot of celebration and warrants a big moment.”

The Broncos’ organization is treating Sunday like a big game, with celebrations throughout the week, ending in the team hosting the Pittsburgh Steelers in their home opener.

“It’s the first home game of the regular season. We’ve got a lot to be excited about, and so we want to celebrate alongside the fans,” Sullivan told DNVR. “There’s so much excitement.”

This year, the celebration is extending beyond just Sunday’s game. It began on Tuesday. It continued Wednesday and will carry on Thursday and Friday as well. The Broncos turned the celebration into a campaign that’s literally going across the city. And it even has its own name: See You Sunday.

“The goal was to create a week long campaign to get people excited about the home opener,” Sullivan said, explaining why the team is celebrating the home opener as more than just a single game.

“We wanted something simple — simple, catchy, easy, understandable,” she said, explaining how the catch phrase ‘See You Sunday’ came about. “It was more of a when you think about when we greet each other, you know, on our way toward game day, the home week, it’s always like, ‘See you Sunday. See you Sunday!’ So it’s kind of a call to action, but also a bit of a greeting too.”

While the initial idea was simple, the campaign is not.

Leading up to the home opener on Sunday, Sept. 15, Sullivan and the Broncos’ marketing team, along with collaboration from other departments, put together five main events and surprises around the city to celebrate the upcoming game.

“There were a lot of good ideas, and all of a sudden I was like, ‘Oh, we could space these out on every single day,'” Sullivan said, explaining how the campaign came together. “We were very deliberate on the timing, so we specifically spaced [everything] out.”

On Tuesday, billboards popped up across Denver featuring the campaign’s tagline ‘See You Sunday’ with iconic gameday pictures.

“I love the billboards. I think billboards, done right, can be really effective,” Sullivan said.

On Wednesday night, a ‘See You Sunday’ banner draped on the side of Empower Field at Mile High turned into a massive countdown clock, literally counting down the seconds until Sunday’s kickoff.

On Thursday morning, the team is holding an event at the stadium’s parking lot to help ‘Paint the City Orange,’ where fans can receive a free orange Bronco-head car stencil.

Then, on Friday, the team will go one step further, driving to their fans with their ‘Countdown Caravan.’

“We have a caravan making multiple stops. Miles will be greeting people, cheer be greeting people,” Sullivan said, explaining how the organization will be literally driving around the city to engage with their fans.

“We will make a morning stop at a school. When kids are coming off the busses, you can imagine we’ve got our talent there to greet them. I mean, if you’re in school, what a fun Friday, right,” Sullivan explained with excitement in her voice. “And you can imagine kids going home telling their parents about it.”

Later in the day, the caravan will stop at the Denver Broncos Boys & Girls Club, a few of the team’s partners and will also make a few surprise stops to say hello to their fans across the Denver Metro Area.

“I love the caravan,” Sullivan said. “What a great way to meet and be close with the fans up front and center.”

The events throughout the week were strategically scheduled out too. The closer it is to game day, the closer the organization is to their fans.

“That will be when we start interacting directly with the fans,” Sullivan said about Thursday’s ‘Paint the City Orange’ event. “As we get closer throughout the week, then ‘See You Sunday’ has more meaning and kind of a more seminal message as well.”

The fifth and final core part of the campaign is the influencer locker boxes, which highlight the new Mile High jersey collection.

“I love the lockers. The lockers are really cool, and it really underscores the new Mile High [jersey] collection. Gets people excited, and it’s just a great vessel for your fandom,” Sullivan said. “Some of them have already gone out, so you should start to see some of our influencers starting to share, and they’ll trickle in.”

Additionally, as part of the See You Sunday campaign, fans will have the opportunity to win their own influencer locker boxes as well as tickets to Sunday’s game against the Steelers.

If the idea of the See You Sunday campaign seems new, it’s because it is. There’s always been a little extra emphasis on the team’s home opener, but nothing like a full campaign like this.

“We were even more so strategic, deliberate and purposeful,” Sullivan said about See You Sunday. “This season, there’s something kind of layering in, you know, layer after layer every single day.”

The NFL has mastered building up the start of the season from a league perspective. But the Broncos are pioneering how to bring excitement to the local market for the team’s home opener.

“This is something we really wanted to do,” Sullivan said. “Just as a good welcoming to the home opener for Broncos fans.”

While the Broncos are thrilled to welcome more than 76,000 fans to Empower Field at Mile High on Sunday, See You Sunday extends far beyond the fans at the actual game.

“When we say, ‘See You Sunday,’ it’s more than [the fans we see] at Empower Field at Mile High, but also some fans that are at the bar, right? They’re at the bar watching the game with their friends,” Sullivan explained. “Or for some fans, it’s at their home and they’re having a viewing party. You know, on any of these touch points, we’re going to see all of our fans on Sunday.”

“Broncos Country is so much bigger than [the fans in the stands],” Sullivan added. “We hope to see them at the stadium. But if not, there are multiple ways we will see them on Sunday.”

What started as an idea on a Saturday during training camp quickly blossomed into a campaign thanks in part to the Walton-Penner Ownership group.

“They’ve been great. So I think you would hear an overall theme of ownership is very involved and extremely supportive throughout every single thing we do,” Sullivan said, explaining the role the team’s ownership had in the campaign. “We honestly have the best ownership in the league. And when you have a great, supportive ownership, they give you a canvas for opportunities to think of new things, constantly pushing us and challenging us. What can we do better from the fan experience to support football, to support winning.”

While there won’t be week-long campaigns for every home game the Broncos have, Broncos Country should keep their eyes peeled.

“And, you know, we may have a few more surprises up our sleeves in a few weeks,” Sullivan teased. “Every now and then where we feel like it’s truly a big event, you’ll see more marketing to really just add to part of the fan experience.”

As the festivities ramp up, the Broncos’ Chiefs Marketing Officer had one final message for Broncos Country.

“We’ll See You Sunday.”