The NFC Europe Division? AFC Border Division?

The popularity of the National Football League is at an all time high. Its popularity in the United States is growing across nearly every demographic. Interest among Hispanic and female fans has grown rapidly in recent years. There are NFL franchises in almost every region of the United States. Television ratings of regular season games are rivaling or dwarfing those of post season Major League Baseball games. There are very few remaining segments of American society that have not had their collective interests stoked by NFL football.
This is great news for any stakeholder in the NFL. However, the key to the success of any business is its ability to grow and evolve. Roger Goodell, in his five seasons as Commissioner of the National Football League, has demonstrated that he is a visionary. He is not one to rest on his laurels and grow fat, dumb, and happy with the enormous success and popularity that the NFL currently enjoys. The flip side of the aforementioned success of the NFL in America is that the NFL will inevitably experience a decrease in its rate of attracting new American followers, the ultimate end users of its product.




The Buffalo Bills host the Miami Dolphins in Toronto in December, 2008

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Roger Goodell and the National Football League have conducted several experiments testing the NFL's product outside the borders of the United States. The NFL has held exhibition contests in Mexico, Japan, England, and Canada over the years. It launched the World League of American Football (later NFL Europe), a quasi-developmental league, in 1991. In recent years, the NFL has played 6 regular season games, all sellouts, in London and Toronto. Roger Goodell has publicly supported the possibility of having an NFL franchise based in London. There are has been intense speculation that the Buffalo Bills franchise has been setting itself up for a move to Toronto in the near future. It is time for the National Football League to go global.



The Miami Dolphins and New York Giants play in London's Wembley Stadium in 2007.

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In order for any business, including the 800 pound gorilla of American sports, the National Football League, to grow, it must exploit new sources of revenue. One means of doing so is to add to its product line, such as new types of merchandise or new media, such as wireless devices and the Internet, to deliver its product. However, the only way to experience true dynamic growth of an entertainment product like professional football is to capture new followers. The only way that the NFL can capture new followers on a massive scale is to expand into new markets. The only markets the NFL has not thoroughly penetrated yet, are those of foreign countries.

The NFL would experience new ticket sale revenue in foreign markets. In addition, the NFL would rake in new television revenue from new, foreign broadcast, cable, and satellite television partners. With metropolitan populations in excess of 5 million in cities like London, Barcelona, Frankfurt, Monterrey, Mexico City, Toronto, and Paris, there are a number of lucrative opportunities to boost (already strong) NFL television revenues.

The league and its owners would not be the only stakeholders to benefit. The expansion of the league would mean that players would have total job openings available. This means more opportunities for players to enter the league and more opportunities of veterans to remain in the league. It would mean potentially longer careers for established players and greater lifetime earnings for players. With new ticket and television revenue coming into the league, if negotiated and structured properly, there could be an opportunity for higher player salaries.

There are a number of logistical challenges that would be incurred by expanding the NFL to overseas markets. Obviously, travel to and from European markets would be far more taxing on personnel than the 5 hour cross country flight that only the most jet lagged NFL teams currently experience. This can be mitigated, for example, by expanding to enough European cities to form a division (each NFL division currently has four teams) and clustering the schedule of the 8 division games in Europe in some manner, assuming the current 16 game format for this example. Likewise, European teams (which will likely be made up entirely of North American players in the early years) could have 4 game "road" stretches in North America, home for the players.

Countries such as Mexico, Canada (in a city such as Montreal or Quebec City), France, Spain, and Germany will present language barriers for American players. However, the proportion of English speakers in international destination cities should be sufficient for Americans to live comfortably, especially with the aid of interpreters and other comforts that could be negotiated by the Player's Association. This is not completely without precedent. Dozens of American expatriates currently participate in European basketball leagues and Japanese baseball leagues.

Of course we want Europeans to embrace the NFL. Save the riots for soccer, okay?

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There is also a time zone consideration. In order for the NFL to broadcast road games of American teams playing in Europe in the afternoon, all European-hosted games involving North American franchises would have to begin at night in Europe. It would likely eliminate the possibility of a European team playing in an American prime time game. European media outlets are not likely to smile upon the prospect of a televised game beginning in the wee hours of the morning. No transition to any change can be perfect. But, logistically, it can be done. NFL football will simply have to be a night time affair in Europe when North American visiting teams are involved and vice-versa. Who knows? The NFL may back into a profitable ancillary late night television market in both continents due to this logistical challenge.

NFL expansion into foreign markets will offer more football for NFL fans to view. There will be more options of games to watch and players & teams to follow. It will offer more money to stakeholders in the form of ticket revenues, television revenues, and player, coach, and staff salaries. There would be more job openings in the NFL for players and other personnel. The addition of new markets means there will be new customers and increases the potential for the greater long term prosperity of the National Football League.

William "The Refrigerator" Perry with the London Monarchs of the World League of American Football in 1996.

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1) Image from http://www.kjeldbjerg.dk/
2) Image from nfl.com
3) Image from http://www.zacktaylor.ca/
4) Image from http://www.theage.com.au/