The NFL is going global. Here's why.
Everyone around the world wants more American football. Expect the sport to only grow, and grow, and grow abroad. Longtime subscriber Peter Varnum explains the allure... and what's next.
(Editor’s note: We’ll check in periodically with Peter Varnum in Switzerland to learn more about the NFL’s global push. There’s a reason the NFL is pushing so hard to grow the game abroad in London, Germany, Brazil and beyond. Varnum does an excellent job bringing it all to light with interviews overseas. Below is his first piece.)
By Peter Varnum
When Patrick Mahomes stepped on the football field at Deutsche Bank Stadium in Frankfurt, Germany last November, you could feel that it wasn’t just another game. Fans — German and American, Austrian and Australian, Swiss, British, and from elsewhere — stood, sang, drank, clapped one another on the back. Players would later describe it as a “playoff atmosphere.”
In addition to a critical AFC contest among two contenders, Frankfurt was a party. People sang and danced and chanted, drank beer and bought swag and inhaled sausages, stayed long after the final whistle to watch RedZone in the parking lot on enormous screens. It was not only an American football game in a country jonesing for American football. It was an event.
Right now, the NFL is enjoying unprecedented and unparalleled popularity in the US. But as Go Long often points out, the NFL’s product works because the hardworking men and women across the States choose to give their money in support of the game — of their team. While the infrastructure of the NFL in the US is alive and well with record-breaking viewership and media mega-deals announced yearly, the league’s international footprint is just starting. Growing, yes: the Philadelphia Eagles will take on the Green Bay Packers in São Paolo in Week 1 of the 2024 NFL season, with plans in the works for inaugural games in Spain and Australia in addition to its continued competition in the UK and now Germany. But the league’s international push is still in its infancy.
I’ve set out to answer the question: How can the NFL thrive internationally?
This is a question that the league has asked itself for years, of course, but the answer is still unknown — both to the NFL, but, more interestingly for our purposes, to fans, players, businesspeople around the game abroad.
We’ll answer that question at Go Long.