Moving the goalposts: Booming NFL looks to expand global footprint with Brazil game

The NFL steamroller returns Thursday night, as the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs host the Baltimore Ravens in a game that is sure to draw massive ratings, whether Taylor Swift is on hand or not.

But the league that last year produced 93 of the 100 most-watched broadcasts in the United States isn’t content with just owning American TV screens. The NFL has long had designs on taking its product global — and this season, that includes the league’s first-ever foray into Brazil, where the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in Sao Paulo on Friday night.

“They’re kind of at a cap right now,” Lisa Delpy Neirotti, a sports management professor at George Washington University, said of the NFL. “How many more Americans can be watching football? So they have to, if they’re going to grow, expand internationally.”

The 2024 NFL schedule features five international matchups for the ever-growing league, with tilts in London, Munich and Sao Paulo. The international expansion will continue in 2025 with eight games on foreign soil, including at least one event in Madrid.

The sports fanatics in Brazil seem like a perfect fit for NFL fandom. The culture rabidly supports its soccer teams and features some of the same tough-guy values that American football embodies, according to Ms. Delpy Neirotti.

“It’s a big country. You’re looking at population sizes; you’re looking at sporting culture, where they’ve had success before and also commercial opportunities,” she said. “Where do the sponsors want to go? Where could they attract new companies?”

But the trip to Brazil also involved some surprising security concerns for the teams. Eagles wide receiver A.J. Brown said players were urged to safeguard their valuables, noting that players should keep their phones out of sight as they walk down the street.

Despite the worries about crime, the NFL is rolling full-speed ahead for its first regular-season game in South America.

Events connected to Friday’s contest include a festival that blends American and Brazilian cultures and a halftime show by Brazilian pop star Anitta.

“That’s what you do; you bring in their culture to attract some people and then meld it with the sport,” Ms. Delpy Neirotti said. “From what I’ve seen, they have a big lead-up, big excitement in the country that they’re going to.”

International state of affairs

While 120 million Americans tuned in to the 2024 Super Bowl, the global audience for the NFL championship game came in at a relatively modest 62.5 million. The NFL sees that number as an indication of an appetite for the American game that has barely been tapped.

“They’re making international games a more consistent and prominent effort and scheduling unique games — lineups that could attract people,” Ms. Delpy Neirotti said. “Before it was just, ‘Let’s try it and see what happens.’ But now they know it works, so they need more marketing in-country.”

The NFL was once mocked for sending the lowly Jacksonville Jaguars to London each year for a low-stakes regular game that often had no impact on the playoff picture. That’s changed in recent years — the Chiefs faced the Miami Dolphins in Frankfurt, Germany, last season for one of the most highly anticipated games of the season.

Experts say marquee international matchups are a must if the NFL wants to stake out a foreign foothold.

“The whole sports world is going more global,” said Paul Seaborn, a University of Virginia business professor. “You see lots of Americans watching the Premier League or other international football matches from all different continents and time zones. The NFL is not just competing with the other North American pro sports leagues, but competing with international leagues.”

The NFL lags behind its rivals in terms of international recognition. Baseball caps emblazoned with the New York Yankees’ logo are a common sight around the world. The English Premier League’s international audience has surpassed its domestic audience. The NBA is attracting more and more foreign superstars who picked up the game as kids.

“That’s what the NFL wants,” Ms. Delpy Neirotti said. “They want other countries paying for international broadcast rights. They want other countries to be buying jerseys. What they’re trying to do is make American football a global sport.”

Global markets

The NFL has been inspired by its rivals, but the league is determined to blaze its own path to worldwide dominance with a coordinated effort it calls the Global Markets Program. The league divvies up new international markets each offseason and assigns them to different teams.

In 2024, 25 of the league’s 32 clubs will try to grow their fanbases in 19 different international markets.

“I’ve never seen another league carve up the world this way,” Mr. Seaborn said. “It’s very unique and a little bit hard to sift through.”

Some of the team and market matchups make sense. The Seattle Seahawks and Minnesota Vikings, two of the league’s northernmost teams, were assigned to Canada. After years of playing annual home games in London, the Jaguars were designated as one of England’s teams.

But the connection between New Zealand and the Los Angeles Rams isn’t as clear. The same can be said for the Cleveland Browns’ ties to Nigeria.

“To me, it seems like more of an experiment — a sort of interim phase,” Mr. Seaborn said. “You’re investing a little more heavily in certain communities; target it and see if it works. That’s what we’re learning right now, whether that’s an effective way to go.”

International stars

Part of the effort to market itself overseas involves signing foreign players, like the Washington Commanders’ Efe Obada. The Nigerian-born defensive lineman picked up the sport after NFL teams started playing in London.

“My first exposure was the Miami Dolphins, but the Jaguars were making a huge push,” said Obada, who grew up in England and the Netherlands. “They were doing camps and having different pop-ups to try to solidify themselves as London’s team. That was my first exposure to the NFL.”

The 32-year-old didn’t think an NFL career was an option when he started playing football with his hometown London Warriors in his early 20s. But after impressing coaches at a workout, Obada became one of the first members of the NFL’s International Player Pathway Program in 2017.

The program has continued to evolve in the last seven years. In 2024, NFL teams were granted an additional training camp and practice squad spot for international players. Nigerian defensive lineman Haggai Ndubuisi is filling that added position for the Commanders this season.

“That’s a beautiful thing,” Ndubuisi said of football’s global growth.

“There are a lot of people who got major talents, who are strong and built for something like this, but we don’t have the opportunity. The international [program] is a way to open the eyes of people. There’s a better path, this light at the end of the tunnel.”

The protected role through the international pathway gives athletes with minimal football experience the opportunity to hone their skills without losing a roster spot to someone who’s been playing the sport for 20 years.

“I can only speak for myself; it’s definitely changed my life,” Obada said. “The pathway kind of saved my career by giving me a year to kind of develop and allow me to close that gap. For a lot of guys, they’re coming in at a deficit. Being able to play and get coached by NFL coaches, that is huge. It changes lives.”

But the NFL reaps just as many benefits from the program. While it adds potential stars, the league’s pathway also brings in new international fans.

“I think it’s clear that the NFL has learned and recognizes that fans around the world have another level of affiliation and identification with the league if they see players they can relate to,” Mr. Seaborn said, noting the NBA’s popularity in China after the Houston Rockets signed center Yao Ming.

Foreign future

Australia and Ireland have expressed interest in hosting NFL games in 2025 and beyond, but the league is already eyeing 2028, when flag football will debut at the Los Angeles Olympics.

Mr. Seaborn and Ms. Delpy Neirotti both noted that the Olympic stage could accelerate the international growth of football. People who play a sport in their youth are more likely to become lifelong fans, they said.

“It’s all about driving awareness,” Ms. Delpy Neirotti said. “This is their way of promoting the sport in different countries around the world.”

But active international players have their eyes set on more modest goals. While Ndubuisi and Obada both said the Olympics offer a valuable spotlight for their sport, they want to see more infrastructure to support opportunities for international players.

“That would be amazing,” Obada said. “Also more [international] games, more fans, more exposure, just more people being aware of what American football is.”

International fans and business-minded owners could have their eyes on a flashier goal: an NFL expansion team on foreign soil.

“The NFL has whetted the appetite of these fans, so what can they provide?” Mr. Seaborn said, hypothesizing that Mexico could welcome an expansion team by 2034. “If nothing’s happened at that point, you’d really be wondering if they ever get coordinated enough to go all the way with the first international team that changes the league forever.”