The first ever international NFL game was between the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants on October 28, 2007 at Wembley Stadium in London, England. Since this game, there have been more than 50 games played outside of North America. These playing sites consist of the United Kingdom, Germany, and England, as well as other countries in Northern and Southern America like Canada and Mexico. In just the 2024 NFL season, there will be a total of 5 International games played.
The National Football League’s commissioner, Roger Goodell, discussed in the 2024 off season that they were incorporating international games in an effort to expand the NFL’s reach and grow its fan bases.
With the expansion and growth of fan bases, markets opened up for jersey and equipment sales outside of the United States. To show this, before COVID-19, the NFL had a total revenue of 15.2 billion dollars. In 2020, that number drastically dropped to 12.2 billion dollars. However, with the introduction of international games, the total revenue has increased to 20.2 billion dollars in 2023, which is an all time high for the league.
For the NFL to decide where to hold these overseas games, they base the sporting sites on the country’s economic size, passion, and global sporting power. The reason Brazil was chosen as a hosting site for the Green Bay Packers vs Philadelphia Eagles game earlier in the season was because of their massive and passionate soccer fanbase, as well as having the 8th largest sporting economy in the world.
Another way that the NFL is growing is that more foreign players are being signed by teams. Not only are these players foreign, they can also sometimes be multi-sport athletes. Earlier in the 2024 season, the Kansas City Chiefs signed Louis Rees-Zammit, a former rugby player for the Gloucester Rugby Club in the English Premiership. As a rugby star, Zammit played running back. This is a defensive position that stopped the other team from advancing the ball, as well as kicking the ball to their own team when the possession flipped to the offense.
While Louis played running back for his rugby club, the Chiefs signed him as a wide receiver, but soon waived him, where he became a free agent, but shortly after he was signed by the Jacksonville Jaguars where he currently plays.
With the NFL also signing more foreign born players, they created a scouting system which is called the “International Combine.” Within this combine, different athletes from different countries are tested to see how they perform on the football field, instead of on the pitch or court. The National Football League also created the “International Player Pathway Program,” which helps foreign players reach the NFL. Since the program started in 2017, more than 50 athletes from 18 different countries have trained in the United States, from the IPP program.
The growth of the National Football League has been on a dramatic rise in the past few years and is expected to continue this pattern of growth because of the increasing number of overseas games, as well as the continued signing of foreign players. And who knows, soon the NFL might have teams located in European countries.
