The National Football League wants to play more fixtures in new markets as part of the doubling of its international series to eight games in 2025, with France and several Asian countries atop its list.
The NFL has held games in recent years in Germany, Mexico and the United Kingdom, all of which have been regarded as successful.
São Paulo, Brazil will start the 2024-25 season with a Friday-night opener featuring the Philadelphia Eagles and a to-be-named opponent as one of five games played internationally this coming season, while in 2025 the NFL will make a debut stop in Madrid, Spain.
France has long been earmarked as the next logical move for the league with talks held with Paris authorities over hosting at the Stade de France.
Speaking ahead of an appearance at the SportAccord summit in Birmingham next week, Brett Gosper, the NFL’s head of Europe and APAC, told SportBusiness: “We’re always looking a long way out at the viability. Then we match up that viability with the desirability which adds elements to it all.
“You’ve got to know you can actually land a game in these markets. There’s quite widespread work done across all continents to see what that viability is.”
The league is open to preseason games in some international markets, and even training camps.
The NFL’s expansion of international games and focus on finding new markets is all part of the league’s wider international strategy to be perceived as a global sports property.
Gosper said that there are markets across Asia that the league can envision staging matches. The NFL played preseason exhibition games in Tokyo, Japan between 1976 and 2005. A crowd of 45,203 spectators attended the final match at the Tokyo Dome 19 years ago.
The NFL had attempts to play in China cancelled for various circumstances.
The originally scheduled China Bowl was to be played at Workers Stadium in Beijing, China in August 2007. It was to mark the one-year countdown to the 2008 Olympics and would have been the first NFL-sanctioned game to take place in the country. Upon announcing the cancellation, the NFL said that it wanted to concentrate its “global resources” on a regular-season game in London.
In France, BeIN added extra programming with the NFL in August 2023 in a multi-year renewal, while the league continues its free-to-air deal with M6. Super Bowl LVIII between the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers was watched by an average of 370,000 (a 12.9-per-cent share) on M6 between midnight (CET) and 3am, according to figures from Médiamétrie. M6 secured its best audience since the 2020 match-up between the same two sides.
The NFL has nine media rights partners in China, including streaming platform Tencent, whose deal runs through 2024. DAZN’s coverage extends to Japan, where matches are also broadcast by G+. IMG recently reprised its media rights sales role in Central and Southeast Asia.
Team affiliation
Demand for hosting international NFL games has exceeded supply, Gosper told SportBusiness last year.
He said: “We look a long way ahead. We don’t want ever to be caught out. Who knows, the stadium that we are using could for whatever reason not be available and very quickly you need to pivot.
“We’ve talked to Stade de France [Paris], we’ve talked to the Bernabeu [Madrid], Barcelona and other places. We know at some point in time these places are going to become potential hosts. We need to know if they are workable, how workable they are, and what needs to be done to make them so.”
The league has also opened international offices in some of the countries it sees as key growth markets, including Australia, Canada, China, Germany, Mexico and the UK.
“We know fans can be followers of the NFL but they definitely become a much deeper fan when they have a team that they’re attached to,” Gosper continued. “Clubs activating in those markets create bridges that the NFL can’t create on their own so not only does it increase the noise but it deepens that engagement.”
When the league hosts games in new markets, building up the event with city-wide activations is a major part of the preparation.
One key component going to these cities has been the cross-promotion through the local football clubs. Whether that be Tottenham Hotspur in England or Bayern Munich in Germany, Gosper says it has been helpful for the league to have a leading football partner in the markets it plays in, which could contribute to future locations.
Brazil’s NFL game this year will be at Corinthians’ home ground and next year’s Madrid game will be at the Bernabeu, home of Real Madrid.
The games themselves turn into spectacles, with sponsor activity, fan zones, and general commercialisation in the cities.
“Around those games, we turn them into mini-Super Bowls in each market”, added the former chief executive of World Rugby.
“At the same time, they create discussions with commercial partners who activate throughout the year. They create hub points for watch parties and other activities around the draft and around kick-off. We use those games to extend our presence and the tangibility of our presence and the proximity of the game to those fans in that market.”
Global Markets Program expansion
The NFL’s Global Markets Program (GMP) has continued its growth, now engaging with 25 teams in 19 markets. The league recently expanded the initiative with more teams joining as well as existing clubs adding more territories. Mexico and Germany now have 10 teams in each of the markets as the league continues its surge in two of its recent international fixture hubs.
Last year, France was added for the first time, with New Orleans Saints handed marketing rights in the country, albeit the GMP allocation is no guarantee of where a franchise will play its international game.
“We can only increase fan engagement, the marketing noise in a positive sense, the activations by commercial teams and the connection to the NFL via the clubs’ deeper connection with fans as we know,” Gosper said. “What’s good about this is we see more teams getting involved. There are now a small minority of teams not involved, but even the ones already involved are expanding their footprint to a greater number of markets so it has been very successful and that’s a symptom of that.”
Back-to-back Super Bowl champions the Kansas City Chiefs, which played in Germany and has become the top team in the market, is looking at penetrating the DACH market further. The team works with agencies in their affiliated markets.
“We try to think like a German fan. What would a German fan want? Probably something a little bit different than what an American fan will want,” Chiefs vice-president of content and production Rob Alberino told SportBusiness. “Maybe it’s a little more education, maybe it’s understanding the game a little differently, maybe it’s delivering it in a flavour that’s easier to consume.”
Gosper and Alberino will discuss fan engagement opportunities for US major leagues and teams, alongside Marc Ciampa, VP content, New Jersey Devils, and Scott Kegley, VP digital strategy, Atlanta Falcons, at the SportAccord World Sport & Business Summit 2024 held in Birmingham, UK from April 7-11.