Can American football become less American?

3/5/24, 12:56 PM

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Culture | The sports page

Can American football

become less American?
The NFL wants to take the sport to the world. The world
may not want it

image: reuters

Feb 9th 2024 Share

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Can American football become less American? 3/5/24, 12:56 PM

Feb 9th 2024 Share

T o witness the power of American culture, step into

a hip co!ee shop in a big city outside the United
States. The decor will typically have a Brooklyn aesthetic,
with exposed brickwork and mismatched chairs; American
pop music will play softly in the background; patrons will
pore over their MacBooks while sipping overpriced ca!è
americano. Want to exit Pax Americana? Ask one of those
patrons to predict the winner of the Super Bowl, which is
taking place on February 11th, and witness their blank stare.

This year the final game of the National Football League

(nfl) season pits the Kansas City Chiefs against the San
Francisco 49ers. It will be a four-hour extravaganza, with a
modicum of sport squeezed in between a concert from
Usher, an r&b star, and adverts from America’s biggest
corporations. Last year’s edition was watched by 200m
Americans, 60% of the population. Within the country, the
nfl dwarfs other sports, and even other national
obsessions like Hollywood, in terms of interest and cultural
heft . Last year 93 of the 100 most-watched tv broadcasts
were nfl-related. Outside the country, though, nfl is not
just dwarfed, it’s largely ignored.

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It is not that the world is averse to American sports. By

some estimates, basketball is the third-biggest sport in the
world, after football (the real kind) and cricket. Volleyball,
another American invention, is played in nearly every
country in the world. American football, by contrast, has
been a poor traveller.
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Can American football become less American? 3/5/24, 12:56 PM

been a poor traveller.

Many forces can take a sport to new shores, but the most
important is the game itself. Football’s global supremacy is
due to its simplicity. The required equipment is minimal
and location scarcely matters. A pitch is nice, but a street
will do. Gridiron is convoluted. There are 11 players on the
field, but 53 in a squad. It’s a violent game, di"cult for
children to pick up, or for out-of-shape folk to return to.
Playing it seriously is impossible without expensive
protective gear. Some of the rules are ba#ing, which can
discourage novice spectators.

For a sport to matter in multiple countries accessibility is

not enough. It needs competitions that include them.
Football tournaments such as the World Cup and the
Champions League transmit local passion to the global
arena. In basketball, where America’s nba stands apart as
the marquee competition, domestic leagues elsewhere are
flourishing. They supply the nba with some of its best
players. But no league comparable to the nfl exists outside
North America, let alone an international tournament.

Sports stars can be another powerful marketing tool. The

exploits of Muhammad Ali helped boxing grow. Michael
Jordan accelerated basketball’s global expansion. At one
point in the 1990s he was the world’s most famous man,
according to a (perhaps apocryphal) survey conducted by
Warner Bros ahead of the film studio’s production of
“Space Jam”—starring Mr Jordan. The sport’s ties with hip-
hop, another hugely popular American cultural export, also
helped. American football has yet to find such resonance.
For non-Americans, the most recognisable person at this
weekend’s Super Bowl will be in the stands: Taylor Swift,
the pop star dating Travis Kelce, the Chiefs’ tight end.

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All this is not for a lack of e!ort. The nfl is desperate to

expand the game’s fan base. Since 2007 nfl games have
taken place each year in London. This past season three
games took place in the British capital as well as two in
Frankfurt. By 2025 the number of international games will
increase to eight, including one in Brazil.

To make the game more accessible the nfl is also

promoting flag football—a simpler, less brutal version of
the sport that will feature at the Olympics in Los Angeles in
2028. The nfl also got the Netflix treatment in 2023 with
an eight-part series that went behind the scenes of the
2022-23 season. These initiatives show promise. All the
games abroad have been near sell-outs. According to the
nfl, 56m people outside America watched the Super Bowl
last year, 7% more than in 2022.

Serious long-term success will in part depend on the

competition, though. Other sports are seeking to expand.
Cricket is trying to break into new markets, including
America, which will host some games in the Twenty20
World Cup this year. Football is getting even bigger, and
has increased the number of teams at its next World Cup
finals from 32 to 48. And aggressive global expansion
comes with costs. American fans grumble about the nfl
games played abroad as this reduces the number they can
witness in person. Some point out that the nfl scarcely
needs to expand. In 2022 the league earned $12bn, 7% more
than in the previous year and comfortably the highest
revenue in league sport. But the perennial search for growth
may be the most American cultural trait of them all. ■

Correction (February 14th 2024): The Los Angeles Olympics

are in 2028, not 2024 as we originally wrote.

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