Breitling Chronomat NFL Collection Kicks off Football Season with 32 T

To many Americans, your humble writer included, the passing of summer is made bearable only by the concurrent start of the National Football League season. This year, Swiss sport-luxury specialist Breitling is helping all of us watch-enthusiast NFL fans to celebrate the kickoff of what has indisputably become America’s Game — whether we hail from Chiefs Kingdom, Steeler Nation, the Bills Mafia, or anywhere in between. The new Breitling Chronomat NFL Collection, launched today, is a series of limited editions from the brand’s ever-popular Chronomat collection, 32 separate references in all and each paying tribute on its dial to one of the NFL’s teams.

To appreciate the scope of what Breitling has accomplished here, it’s worth a look at some other marriages between watchmakers and professional sports organizations. Many of these are of the “Official Timekeeper” variety, involving mostly branding and signage at sporting events, and the occasional special-edition timepiece. These would include Rolex and tennis’ Grand Slams, Longines and horse racing’s Triple Crown, and, at the highest level, Omega and the Olympic Games, which includes development of timing technology for individual competitions but only a relative handful of limited-edition watches, released during Olympiad years.

Hublot has become one of the biggest watch brands in terms of sports partnerships, making watches for standout individual athletes like legendary soccer star Pelé and Olympic gold medalist sprinter Usain Bolt, but best known for its “Hublot Loves Football” campaign (the football in this case being the international game that Americans call soccer). In this ongoing initiative, Hublot makes multiple team-specific and athlete-specific watches and also serves as official timekeeper for major tournaments and organizations, including the FIFA World Cup and the Premier League, with its well-known logo appearing on referee boards across the globe. Not every team in these organizations, however, can boast a team-branded watch.

The only watch/sports synergy that comes close to Breitling’s just-announced NFL collaboration is the one that Tissot launched with the National Basketball Association in 2016, which not includes includes Tissot branding in every NBA arena but also a reinvented shot clock technology developed by the Swiss brand. Tissot has dribbled out (sorry) specialized watches in the years since, mostly focusing on superstar players and championship winning teams, but does not offer a watch designed for each team in the league.

In the world of the National Football League, up until now, the crossover with watch brands has been relatively sparse, probably because, despite the fact that it’s a sport in which seconds on the play clock can be crucial, it’s not a sport in which it’s wise for players to actually wear watches. Citizen once partnered with now-retired New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, and Manning’s two-time Super Bowl opponent, Tom Brady, has actually been associated with more watch brands (Movado, TAG Heuer, IWC) than teams (New England Patriots, Tampa Bay Buccaneers). For a while, Hublot dabbled in the “other” football, becoming a timing partner of both the Giants and the Dallas Cowboys and making signature watches for each. Of course, the most high-profile collaboration lately has been between Zenith and New York Jets QB Aaron Rodgers, which has so far yielded at least one specially branded watch. Breitling, it’s worth noting, claims one of the longest such partnerships: former Bengals quarterback and CBS analyst Boomer Esiason has been a brand ambassador for decades. The Breitling Chronomat NFL series, however, takes these collaborations to the highest level yet: it is the first new collection to launch from a major Swiss luxury brand that offers an individualized watch for every team in a 32-team sports league.

The commonalities among the watches are those you’d likely expect: all are based on the Chronomat B01 42 template, with 42mm stainless steel cases, bezels with the emblematic raised rider tabs at the 15-minute markers, tricompax dials (here with the subdials all in contrasting white), and powered by Breiting’s automatic in-house Caliber B01, with a COSC chronometer certification and a 70-hour power reserve. Each team’s logo appears in the center of the 9 o’clock running-seconds subdial, and the world-famous NFL shield is engraved on all of the watches’ sapphire casebacks, along with a limited-edition number out of 104 total watches (52 each on Breitling’s steel Rouleaux bracelet and 52 on its rubber Rouleaux strap). That’s one watch for each of the 104 previous seasons of the NFL.

For the casual fan, and for the newcomer whose interest is piqued, the NFL is divided into two conferences, the National Football Conference (NFC) and American Football Conference (AFC). Each of these is subdivided into four geographical divisions of East, West, North, and South. Each division has four teams for a total of 32, each now represented by its own Chronomat watch. As the analysts on ESPN say, let’s break them down, division by division.

NFC EAST: New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Commanders

Clockwise from top left: Washington Commanders, Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, Philadelphia Eagles

Some of the oldest and most storied NFL rivalries are rooted in this division, and maintaining those rivalries, i.e., Giants-Cowboys, is perhaps the main reason for the geographically nonsensical inclusion of Dallas in the East. Nevertheless, fans of each team have something to get excited about here. New York (aka “Big Blue”) gets a dark blue dial with red-and-white details; Philadelphia, a dark green dial that evokes the “midnight green” of the team’s unis, with mint-green details.

Dallas’s dial and highlights are also predominantly blue, with the metallic finish of the case aptly filling in the team’s other characteristic color, silver. The iconic Dallas star emblem looks right at home on the subdial. Washington’s traditional burgundy and gold colors, which go all the way back to when the team was called the Redskins, take pride of place on the dial and details, respectively.  

NFC NORTH: Minnesota Vikings, Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions

Diehard fans of the NFC North teams are used to enduring brutal temperatures and punishing conditions to watch their games in person. Fortunately, these Chronomats are as robust as they are sharp-looking. As you’d expect, Green Bay’s emblematic green and gold colors are well-represented on the dial of the Packers watch, as is the traditional purple of the Vikings’ legendary “purple people eaters” defense of the 1970s, along with yellow-gold hands.

“Da Bears” of Chicago get a dark navy dial with orange elements, colors that go all the way back to the team’s founding in 1920. And the watch of the Detroit Lions — a long-suffering team that nevertheless has high aspirations for 2024 — speaks to its blue-collar fanbase with its sleek, classic combo of silver-gray and “Honolulu Blue” — though what the connection is between Honolulu and the Motor City is something I’ll have to Google.

NFC SOUTH: Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Carolina Panthers, New Orleans Saints, Atlanta Falcons

The so-called “NASCAR division” offers both warm-weather conditions and heated modern-day rivalries like Saints-Falcons. The diversity of dial colors in this division’s team watches, however, is somewhat limited: Atlanta, Carolina, and New Orleans are all represented by predominantly black dials, with their more colorful uniform areas coming only subtly in the subdials and central chrono hand.

Those discreet but essential elements are in red for the Falcons, “Carolina blue” for the Panthers, and “old gold” for the Saints, whose classic fleur-de-lis logo looks pretty cool in the 9 o’clock subdial. The Bucs stand out with their “Buccaneer red” main dial and pewter-colored details. (Dials referencing the team’s notorious “creamsicle” uniforms of the ‘70s might have stood out even more, though not necessarily in a good way.)

NFC WEST: San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams, Seattle Seahawks, Arizona Cardinals

The warm-weather teams of the west are represented by a range of reds and blues on the main dials, each with appropriate contrasting details. The Seahawks edition combines a “College Navy” dial with the “Action green” of the central seconds hand and chronograph hands; the team’s rabid “12th Man” fan base will surely call for something special to be done with the “12” index in hypothetical future versions.

The Rams model offers a blue-and-gold colorway (the team’s older, simpler ram’s-horn logo, minus the “L.A.,” would have looked better in the 9 o’clock subdial, but that’s on the NFL for changing it, not Breitling for using it). The Rams’ rival to the north, the 49ers, matches a scarlet dial with yellow details; considering the origin of this team’s Gold Rush-era nickname, an eventual version of this watch in gold seems like a no-brainer. Fans of the desert-dwelling Cardinals get the expected red dial with light-gray details, and the classic, leering bird’s head logo in the running seconds subdial.

AFC EAST: New York Jets, Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, Miami Dolphins

Once dominated by New England, this division that stretches from the frigid climes of Western New York to the sunny shores of Southern Florida has become much more competitive in recent years, so fans of any team can be proud to rock their specialized Breitling watch. The Jets’ watch in “Gotham green” and white is an accessory that the team’s legendary Super Bowl-winning QB and ‘60s style maven Joe Namath probably would have loved to have worn back in his heyday.

The Patriots edition keeps it suitably patriotic with its red, white, and Nautical blue color scheme. A brighter blue highlights the similar color combo of the Bills watch, which like all the Chronomats is tough enough to withstand the winds and snow off of Lake Erie and maybe even the antics of the team’s most hardcore, table-diving tailgaters. The Dolphins watch, with its pleasing Aqua dial with orange highlights, is one of the standouts of the entire league — er, collection. 

AFC NORTH: Baltimore Ravens, Pittsburgh Steelers, Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals

The rivalries in this division are so brutal you may not want to put these watches in the same box together. Like the teams, each watch has its own unique character and colorway. The Baltimore Ravens watch matches the team’s signature purple with yellow-gold highlights. The Steelers’ traditional black-and-gold livery goes heavy on the black, with yellow used sparingly. (Full disclosure, as a Steelers fan, I was sort of hoping for the reverse — a predominantly yellow dial with black details — but upon examining the collection as a whole, I get why Breitling couldn’t go there without straying from the overarching design elements; white subdials probably wouldn’t have worked on such a dial.)

The Bengals dial uses the tiger-stripe colors of orange and black, while the Browns — Ohio’s other team, and the obvious favorite of many of my Cleveland-based colleagues at TB — applies a similar orange color to the central hand and subdial hands, opting for (what else?) a deep brown for the main dial.

AFC SOUTH: Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, Tennessee Titans, Houston Texans

Sort of a patchwork of expansion teams and relocated/renamed teams, the AFC South offers two cat-themed clubs and lots of variations on blue in its team uniforms, The Indianapolis Colts (relocated from Baltimore) sport “speed blue” and white, while the Titans (relocated from Houston to Nashville and renamed) are outfitted in light blue and red, colors drawn from their previous uniforms back when they were the Oilers. The Houston Texans (founded in 2002, replacing the Houston Oilers) have a darker color combo of Steel Blue and “Battle Red.” 

The Jacksonville Jaguars — established in 1995 and currently quarterbacked by Breitling All-Star Squad member Trevor Lawrence — represent sunny northeastern Florida with an ensemble of black, gold, and teal. The Jaguars watch is the only one in the Chronomat NFl collection with a teal dial, and the Colts watch might have the most natural-looking subdial element, the classic horseshoe emblem settling nicely into the center and echoing the dial’s blue. 

AFC WEST: Kansas City Chiefs, Las Vegas Raiders, Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers

Another division defined by longtime rivalries (some from the early days of the AFL, which eventually merged with its larger competitor the NFL to become the modern-day American Conference), the AFC West teams encompass a range of uniform colors captured on this quartet of watch dials. The defending Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs represent with a red-white-and-gold dial and the iconic arrowhead symbol in the subdial. (No word yet on whether the team’s biggest celebrity booster, Taylor Swift, might be sporting one of these on tour; if so, expect the demand to go through the roof.)

The Raiders have been based in Oakland, L.A., Oakland again, and now Las Vegas, but have retained their classical silver-and-black color scheme, which is well executed in the team’s watch. Formerly in San Diego, now repping L.A. on the AFC side, the Chargers are known for a bright powder-blue-and-gold livery that lends the team’s watch a very sunny, SoCal aesthetic. (A Milgauss-style, lightning-bolt seconds hand would have been a nice addition, but for now fans will have to settle for the bolt logo in the small- seconds subdial.) Rounding out the division is the Denver Broncos model, with an orange main dial, Navy blue details, and the horse’s head iconography in the 9 o’clock subdial lending the dial, as it does the uniforms, a sense of galloping energy.

Each watch in the Breitling Chronomat NFL collection will be priced at $8,800 on rubber Rouleaux straps and at $9,200 on steel Rouleaux bracelets. After these inevitably sell out, where does Breitling go from here with its NFL collaboration? It’s anybody’s guess, but remember that every team has a “home” and an “away” uniform, so don’t count out additional colorways in the future.