Nike aired its highly anticipated ad featuring Colin Kaepernick during the NFL season opener Thursday night and the quarterback watched from the company's headquarters in Oregon.

The commercial aired during the first ad break in the third quarter of the Philadelphia Eagles-Atlanta Falcons game.

While the company didn't announce Kaepernick would be in Oregon for the ad's debut, several accounts of the event were posted on social media. He spoke to a crowd a few hours before it aired.

"You have to think beyond what you see around you," Kaepernick told the crowd. "You have to see the future that you believe in and that you want not just for yourself but all the people you see globally."

Kaepernick hasn't spoken to the media publicly since opting out of his contract with the San Francisco 49ers and becoming a free agent in 2017.