Andorra’s Team? The NFL and Overseas Expansion

With the Dallas Cowboys known as America's team, should we also have a Germany's team, a China's team, and maybe a San Marino's team? A recent poll in Street and Smith's Sports Business Journal asked industry respondents which U.S. sports league would first place a franchise outside North America.

The National Football League led the survey with nearly 42%. 27% chose the NBA, followed in order by MLS, the NHL, and MLB, each polling in single digits.⁽¹⁾ The plurality picked the league that has played regular season games In London since 2007 and once operated a minor league in Europe, the continent most economically attractive to a team.⁽²⁾

A gridiron expansion or relocation makes sense for a number of reasons. For one thing, the NFL plays games once a week, which simplifies travel compared to more frequently played sports. Four two-week road trips for the team based abroad should work, maybe with no U.S. prime time games to skew the TV schedule for the home supporters.

It might also prove easier to generate eight games worth of NFL-worthy crowds than it would 41 for basketball or hockey. Almost every European basketball or hockey team⁽³⁾ would love to draw half an NBA or NHL team's normal attendance,⁽⁴⁾ and their arenas mostly don't approach the necessary capacity in any case. Thanks to association football, the "other football" would at least find sufficiently sizable stadiums abroad.

Could the NFL duplicate this sort of atmosphere with a team abroad?

Of course, one of the NFL's greatest strengths lies in its massive centrally-distributed TV revenue. Adding Eurosport or Sky dollars to the coffers won't hurt the bottom line. An expansion to, say Los Angeles and London might reward the league for its scheduling and realignment hassles with substantial new television dollars and exposure.

An American football league would also face no domestic league competition in the same sport. Convincing a fan to transfer his or her basketball allegiance from Maccabi to the new Tel Aviv Wildcats asks much. No such conflict would exist for the London Steamroller or Berlin Bulldogs as they introduced spectators to square-ins and safety blitzes.

So how might the NFL go about their expansion to the Old World? They could try an affiliation with an existing soccer club. You could do worse than inheriting the name recognition and built-in fan base of treble-winner Bayern Munich, for instance. Europe has tended to structure its different sports through a club system anyway. Real Madrid, for instance, has long fielded one of the best basketball teams on the continent to go with its soccer Galácticos. Bayern operates teams in a number of sports and its basketball team made the Euroleague this season. The NFL, in fact, briefly had such an arrangement with FC Barcelona for the former World Bowl-champion Barcelona Dragons franchise in NFL Europe.⁽⁵⁾ U.S. franchises have occasionally affiliated themselves with distant sports brands for mutual marketing benefit, such as the now-defunct Manchester United/New York Yankees alliance and the more recent Yankees/Manchester City joint MLS effort.⁽⁶⁾ Could the NFL even work with authorities to brand a single-country franchise as the nation’s official national squad?

While the NFL would have substantial, perhaps even insurmountable, obstacles to overcome through lack of fan familiarity with the game, the similar sport of rugby does have a following in Europe. And, as the most popular sport in the U.S., gridiron can count on the support of expatriates and military personnel stationed overseas. They could choose Germany, where NFL Europe had its most success or England, where it has hosted its regular season competitions. Munich might work best if they pursue affiliation with an existing soccer power, since aligning with one of London’s clubs might alienate supporters of the others. Bayern’s relative market dominance might serve the U.S. league better.

If it does become the Multi-national Football League, the circuit will perhaps score a touchdown for the cause of international goodwill. With that in mind, as we ponder whether there should be an Argentina's team or an Australia’s team, we’d like to suggest the league take the opportunity to change the name of the much-maligned product now known as “exhibition games.” Start calling them friendlies.

Next blog post : Is the NFL even the best candidate for a deal overseas? We have another out-of-the-box possibility to suggest.

Rush Olson has spent two decades directing creative efforts for sports teams and broadcasters. He currently creates ad campaigns and related creative projects for sports entities through his company, Rush Olson Creative & Sports.

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Footnotes

(1) “Reader Survey.” Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal. November 25-December 1, 2013. P.26.

(2) “London Calling,” National Football League. http://www.nfl.com/international (accessed December 19, 2013).

(3) Torero, “European average spectators by country and by club,” HFBoards. http://hfboards.hockeysfuture.com/showthread.php?t=753850 (accessed December 19, 2013).

(4) “List of sports attendance figures,” Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports_attendance_figures (accessed December 19, 2013).

(5) MacGille, “Barcelona Dragons,” World League of American Football Website. http://www.worldleagueofamericanfootball.com/id87.html (accessed December 19, 2013).

(6) Bill Saporito, “Why The New York Yankees And Man City Are Buying Into U.S. Soccer,” Time. http://keepingscore.blogs.time.com/2013/05/23/why-the-new-york-yankees-and-man-city-are-buying-into-u-s-soccer/ (accessed December 19, 2013).