A general view during the London 2021 NFL game between the Miami Dolphins and the Jacksonville Jaguars at Tottenham Hotspur on October 17, 2021 in London, England.
Alex Pantling | Getty Images
The NFL says it has a plan to grow its international business to $1 billion a year and attract the next group of fans.
But the league has some work to do first. It involves the flag of football.
“Over the next five years, we want to expand the NFL flag,” said Damani Leech, NFL International Chief of Operations.
In an interview with CNBC at the NFL Annual Meetings last week, Leech discussed the next phase of the NFL’s overseas expansion. He said that in the next ten years, NFL projects will attract 50 million consumers internationally. This would add to the 180 million domestic consumers and more than 150 million international fans who already consume the most popular American sport.
“That’s our big number that we’re focused on,” Leech said.
Here’s a look at the NFL’s 10-year international plan.
NFL Football Needs Olympic Football Flag
“We have to make the game count,” Leech said when discussing the importance of expanding the sport overseas.
And to do that, the NFL needs the Olympics.
The league is seeking to include football in the summer games. Flag football is similar to pedestrian football, except there are no tackles, and pads and helmets are not necessary for participation.
“If flag football becomes an Olympic sport, more countries will invest in playing the sport,” Lesch said.
This would not be the first time that football has aimed to be included in the Olympic Games.
American football was included in the 1932 Olympics as a demonstration sport. Since then, it has not been recognized. In 1996, clothing company Reebok unsuccessfully lobbied railroad football to re-enter the Olympic scene with a commercial featuring Dallas Cowboys running Emmett Smith.
But the International Olympic Committee recognized the Fifa as the governing body in 2013. This may help the NFL as it pushes for the 2028 Olympics.
Over the Super Bowl weekend earlier this year in Los Angeles, Leech said the NFL organized a US-Mexico-flagged soccer game featuring both men and women — an Olympic requirement. Casey Wasserman, the media executive who chaired the campaign for the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics, was in attendance. He was the chair of the Super Bowl host committee in Los Angeles as well.
LA28 officials did not make Wasserman available for comment to discuss the matter. However, Lesch said the CEO of Wasserman Media Group “supports the idea” of including the football flag.
“I think they were impressed by the speed of it,” Leech said of the 28 other Los Angeles officials who were watching the five-to-five football game. “It’s centerless football where everyone is a receiver, and everyone is a midfielder. You see its speed, and it’s entertaining.”
Also, the NFL is aligned with the 2022 FIFA World Games, which will be held in Alabama from July 7-17. The games feature men and women from teams from countries including Brazil, France, Germany, Japan and Mexico.
Lesch added that the World Games would be “a good opportunity to show the IOC what the sport looks like. It’s competitive and attractive.”
Hamburg midfielder Rod Rutherford (midfield) during the NFL Europe match between the Hamburg Sea Devils and Cologne Centurions at the AOL Arena on April 14, 2007 in Hamburg, Germany.
Alexander Hassenstein | Bongarts | Getty Images
Lessons from the NFL Europe experience
As the league puts pressure on IOC officials, Leech continues to search for new international markets.
The NFL already has a base in Europe. She says she has another 4 million fans in Canada. Leech is traveling to Africa this month to explore job opportunities and match NFL academies to high school students around the world to teach American football.
The league has also increased its global scouting activity through the NFL Players Pathway Program. This unit is used to attract and develop non-traditional players around the world. In March 2020, the NFL began trying to lure soccer players into the program because it wanted to turn those players into potential NFL kicking spots.
The NFL tried to grow soccer internationally in previous years but failed to achieve significant results.
In 1991, the NFL helped start the National Football League and match domestic teams, including San Antonio and Sacramento, to play in a league featuring international clubs. WLFA did not last long. In 1995, it was folded and rebranded to NFL Europe. This business closed in 2007.
Currently, the NFL is experimenting with playing games in Europe – which mainly includes the Jacksonville Jaguars. At the annual meetings last week, the owners approved Jaguar’s plan to play at Wembley Stadium in London for the next three years.
When discussing why the NFL is operating in Europe this time around, Leech referred to the league’s history with spring football, saying it raises fans.
“Financially, did you succeed in the league?” He said. “No. But it had a lot of benefits.”
For the 2022 season, the NFL has scheduled five matches abroad – three in London, one in Germany and one in Mexico.
The German market “outperforms many other markets in terms of viewership and consumer products,” Leitch said. “They consume sports without us playing there.”
NFL Sunday Ticket Sister Ownership
The NFL also granted access to teams to collect more revenue and consumer data through the International Home Marketing Zones Plan in December 2021. It allows 18 teams in 26 international territories to benefit from the “marketing” of the sport. If that works, it only helps support the league’s international media asset – the NFL Game Pass.
Leech described the original as another version of the NFL Sunday Ticket but only for fans outside the United States. In this package, international consumers can stream all platforms, including DAZN, which licenses NFL content for revenue streams in Canada.
Damani Leech, Director of Operations for the NFL
Source: NFL
Leech said NFL Game Pass has reached 1 million paying subscribers, 600,000 in Europe. Although consumers in Europe don’t pay for Game Pass yet, the NFL knows who they are through data collection. “We need to increase that number,” Leech said of the NFL Game Pass.
This also benefits the fanatics. As the e-commerce and memorabilia company is owned in part by the NFL, and relies on consumer data for the league. Fanatics has 80 million users, which is the basis for its projected valuation of $27 billion.
The global scene can cut plans
The NFL’s plans for further international expansion face many challenges.
There is no guarantee that the IOC will accept flag football as a sport. The International Olympic Committee on Friday unveiled a set of “principles” that sports federations must respect before any consideration of Olympic integration. The decision to add the football flag will be decided after the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
Harvey Schiller, the former executive director of the US Olympic Committee, said the NFL needs to implement a series of steps to put the soccer flag on the Olympics’ radar.
The first step is to find more countries to play the game.
“The second step is to spend time with the IOC members who vote on it,” Schiller said. “This takes a lot of time and effort.” He added that they also want to share the best athletes. “They want to see players who have competed in the NFL or will compete in the future,” he said.
The NFL must also compete with football in many international markets. In Australia, the league will have to compete with the continental version of football, as well as rugby.
The NBA has captured significant international markets by creating more than $5 billion in business in China and operating $1 billion in Africa. You also want to add India.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised corporate fears of deglobalisation. This could jeopardize growth in countries whose ideals do not match American values.
Leach said the NFL has pulled all of its Russia business, which amounts to about $300,000 in annual revenue that comes mostly from Madden Electronic Arts video games.
“We can’t win in a market where things like this happen,” Leech said. Asked if the NFL would consider withdrawing its 2022 games abroad if the war escalated, Leach replied: “If it turns into something bigger, we’ll face it when it happens.”
However, Leach expressed confidence in the NFL’s international growth plan over the next ten years.
Where would the NFL be at that point?
Leech predicted he would be “deeply connected” with football fans in 12 to 15 markets around the world. He said the NFL would also have more than 3 million paid subscribers for the Game Pass streaming business.
“And depending on the market, the top three most popular sports properties in that country,” added Leech.