The National Football League’s London excellent road adventures is done for the 2015 season and the NFL is so pleased with the three 2015 road trips that there will be four games in 2016 in London.
I’m Evan Weiner with the Politics of Sports Business.
The NFL is trying to play catch up with the rest of the sports world by exporting the product beyond the United States. If success is measured by selling tickets, London has become a box office smash. The league apparently feels confident that it has conquered the United Kingdom and wants to march into Germany and Mexico. Germany could work because the league had five franchises in the long departed NFL Europe so there was some showcasing of the game with developing talent and there are a high number of US military personal stationed in the country. But American football has a very long way to go before Europeans put it on the same level as international football or soccer, basketball, hockey in Germany and northern and eastern Europe and other sports. American football is not played in Europe on the youth level and would have to be introduced somewhere like schools and have to catch on. The NFL has been dabbling with games in Europe for years including a pre-season game in Stockholm, Sweden and there seems to be about a 1,000 teams playing American football on the continent. There even is a football gridiron near the main port of Stockholm. The NFL also has eyes for Brazil.
Mexico has been exposed to the NFL for decades and at least three teams seem to have fan bases in the country, the Dallas Cowboys, Houston Texans and Arizona Cardinals and those teams don’t want to build a wall between them and potential Mexican fans with the Houston Texans ownership pushing to be part of a 2016 game in Mexico City. After all there are pesos available along with pounds and euros and that is what the NFL is all about. Cash.
This article was republished with permission from the original publisher, Evan Weiner