NFL committed to long game as it hunts 'next 50 million fans' outside US

The National Football League (NFL) says ‌it ​is committed to playing the long game with its international strategy as it works out how to convert growing interest in American football into a genuine global following.

After decades of building an extraordinarily lucrative domestic business, the NFL sees its biggest ‌untapped growth opportunities beyond its home market. "We believe that the next 50 million fans will not come from the United States. They will come from international markets," Gerrit Meier, managing director and head of NFL International, told Reuters.

The NFL is embarking upon a record nine-game international schedule across four continents and seven countries, starting with the Los Angeles ‌Rams' season-opener against the San Francisco 49ers in Melbourne next week, Australia's first taste of American football's elite competition. The league wants to turn games into annual ‌events in the host countries and avoid one-off contests that produce a spike in interest only for it to fade quickly when the circus leaves town.

That principle has underpinned the NFL's multiyear commitment to games in Melbourne, seeing sports-mad Australia as a strategic market. MAKING INROADS

The NFL says it has built a fan base of 8.8 million in Australia, nearly a third of the nation's population, citing an independent survey ⁠on self-identified ​fandom. Non-NFL studies lend some support to the ⁠league's assertion that it is making inroads into a crowded sports market dominated by Australian rules football and rugby league.

In terms of fan interest in non-Australian sport competitions, the NFL is second only to ⁠English Premier League soccer, according to a Deakin University survey last year. But exactly what constitutes a fan in a foreign market is something NFL leadership readily admits it is still coming to ​grips with.

"It’s a good question, and I wish I could say we have the answers for it. We don’t, because internationally, it’s just very different,” ⁠Meier said. “Even from market to market, if you ask someone what it is to be a fan, (the answer) differs very much."

Meier speaks of building a funnel from casual interest into measurable engagement, subscriptions, merchandise and ⁠ultimately ​media value. It will take time and data to measure progress effectively.

'VERY COMPLEX' The NFL says it has plenty of the former but not enough of the latter.

There is support among the NFL team owners for a long-term growth strategy, said Meier. "This is not like I'm dealing with an elected two-three-year contract CEO who need (short-term) returns," he ⁠said.

"We have owners in some cases who've been with the league 100 years-plus as a family, and so you can have the conversation." NFL owners have approved up ⁠to 10 international games a season from ⁠2027, but expanding beyond that would require approval from the NFL Players Association.

The costs of playing games in foreign markets are high but are offset by ticket revenues and fees paid by hosts. "They're very complex to stage ... across time zones, continents," said ‌Meier.

"That's not to say we're ‌going to run this as charity project, right? We see there is direct value." (Reporting ​by Ian Ransom; Editing by Peter Rutherford)