NFL Fumbles with Foreign Expansion but Seeks to Recover

Last Sunday was a bad day for the Glazer family. Both its soccer club, Manchester United, and its American football team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, lost home games in London over the weekend. That's right, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were the designated home team when they played the Chicago Bears at Wembley Stadium, England's national stadium. It was the Bucs' second trip to London in three years to play a regular season game on foreign soil.

NFL games in Europe are not a new phenomenon. This year's installment at Wembley was the fifth annual “International Series” game played by the NFL across the pond. The International Series began in 2007, the same year that NFL's Europa League ceased operations. The NFL's initial European experiment began in 1995 but failed to generate a profit despite generating strong attendance numbers. Maybe it was a case of too much, too soon.

The NFL's current strategy for exporting American football falls in line with that of Europe's most popular soccer clubs, including Barcelona and Manchester United, both of which toured the United States this past summer to prepare for their upcoming regular seasons in Spain and England, respectively. Many European soccer clubs have also taken their talents to Asia as they scramble to sell replica jerseys and other branded merchandise in Asia's growing economies.

A truly global sport, soccer has many advantages over American football when it comes to the international expansion of its most popular brands. For one thing, soccer is already popular around the globe, to the extent that it could be confused for a religion in many countries. For another, many of Europe's top soccer clubs have players from South America, Africa, and Asia on their rosters. These areas include some of the world's fastest growing economies. Many of the world's most recognized global brands are actively pursuing growth in these countries, and the world's biggest soccer brands are no different. As a result, foreign players on the rosters of many of Europe's biggest teams offer great footballing talent, but they also offer those clubs a chance to win the brand loyalty of fans in the home countries of those players.

Still, the NFL has a long way to go if it wants to compete on the global stage with the beautiful game. To do so, it will have to become a truly global brand. As it stands now, the NFL is exporting a couple of American teams to London once a year, but it lacks a true presence and serious fan base outside of North America. 

As we mentioned earlier, soccer resembles religion in many parts of the world, and its fans exhibit incredible brand loyalty. Young children often have no choice as to which team they will support – more often than not it is the hometown team and the team their family has supported for years. While this phenomenon is not too dissimilar from fan loyalty in the NFL, it shows why the NFL needs to be on the ground in cities across the globe if it wants to become a truly global brand.

Perhaps the NFL has already recognized this fact, as its commissioner, Roger Goodell, is now talking about a future franchise team in London.