Here to win: Expanding the NFL's influence in Europe with the growth of avid fandom By Heather McLean, Editor Tuesday, November 8, 2022 - 09:38
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Sameer Pabari, managing director, NFL International Media
From the US to London and now to Munich, the NFL International Series is making great headway on the continent and it is pushing plans for ever more growth of its fanbase on this side of the pond.
With regular season games already selling out Wembley and Tottenham Hotspur Stadiums, on 13 November in Munich, NFL Media is set to bring the Tampa Bay Buccaneers versus the Seattle Seahawks along with all the excitement and pizzazz of American footie to fans.
The cunning plan
On what the overall strategy is on growing NFL viewership in Europe, Sameer Pabari, managing director, NFL International Media, tells SVG Europe: The cunning plan! First of all, I'd like to start off with just reiterating and reemphasizing the importance of international growth for the NFL. It's an absolute strategic priority for the league as a whole, and I think we're in a fortunate position given that we have in our domestic core market in the US, a long term arrangement in place with our players union, and our long term media deals locked in. It really gives us the ability to think strategically over the long term in terms of how to develop and how to grow.
International is very much part of that, and one of the top strategic priorities. And I think the reason for that is that the next 50 million fans are really going to be coming from international markets, as opposed to the US, just given how big we already are in the US.
NFL has 184 million fans aged eight years old and over in the US, and a further 216 million-plus fans internationally.
As to the end goal for the NFL's growth in Europe, Pabari says it is all about onwards and upwards. We definitely are in a real positive trajectory, and over the past few years we've built up real momentum, and we want to continue that growth. Our overall goal, and frankly the mission that anyone who works on the international side of the business signs up to, is to grow the popularity of the sport and the number of avid fans. So that's really our primary objective, and I think if we get that right, then all other elements of what we're trying to achieve, whether it's number of kids playing sport, or audience engagement, or the commercial side of our business in international markets, those will all follow if we do a really, really good job in fandom.
NFL strategy is focused on growing NFL viewership in Europe, says Sameer Pabari, managing director, NFL International Media. The NFL plays regualr season games at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in North London
Here to win
Pabari says that the overall mission for the NFL internationally is to grow avid fandom and increase the popularity of the sport overall in overseas markets, and it is being done on the back of three primary strands to the NFL's strategy.
He notes: The first is various initiatives to grow and deepen fandom. So for example, that would be our own international content marketing, often in local languages, often using local influencers. It's bringing the NFL in some shape or form physically to international markets and that could be smaller scale events all the way up to hosting a regular season game, as we've been doing in the UK and Mexico for several years now, and taking a regular season game to Germany for the first time.
Read more: NFL seeks a Bavarian rhapsody to grow German fanbase as it builds up to first International Series clash in the country
We're also working with our clubs and have granted them additional international marketing rights to be able to directly engage with fans in countries that they're interested in. From our research, it's not rocket science, but people really tend to engage with teams and players on teams, as opposed to leagues. So the first tranche of what we do is really about growing and deepening fandom.
Then we also work really hard in terms of driving engagement, and that's very much through media partnerships we have. But beyond media, it's also reaching fans, particularly younger fans, through digital games such as Fortnight and Roblox and the partnerships that we have there, and also through sports betting for a particular segment of our fan base that like to place bets as well.
And then finally, there's a real push to actually grow the game itself from a playing and participation standpoint, Pabari continues. We work with partners in several countries to offer the non-contact version of the sport flag football to younger kids to introduce them to the game, all the way up to running what we call our international player pathway programme, where we are scouting top athletic talent who may not have played American football before, but we think have the requisite athletic skills and actually have a pathway to actually convert them from whatever sport that they were participating in, into training to become a player that could play in the NFL. So I'd say those are the three primary strands of our overall strategy, and within each of those, there are a number of initiatives that we focus on.
Storming Germany
On the first upcoming regular season game ever being played in Germany on 13 November, Pabari states: It's been a long time coming, but really we've been working consistently to grow our fan base in Germany, both ourselves, and in conjunction with our media partners, to get to this point. And the demand has been absolutely outstanding, we're really, really pleased with that. So very much looking forward to the game.
The reality is that most people will engage with the NFL, like they do with most sports, through broadcast in some way, shape
