For the NFL, the rest of the world is such a greenfield that most of the time we don’t view its international growth efforts through a competitive lens. But nobody has invented the 25-hour day, so any attention the NFL picks up in places like the U.K., Spain or Germany is coming from something else.
That’s why I was so intrigued to hear senior NFL and Premier League executives acknowledge this dynamic onstage at the CAA World Congress of Sports on Wednesday, even if they downplayed it. Both NFL CRO Renie Anderson and Will Brass, the chief commercial officer of the Premier League, said there’s room to co-exist, but Anderson did make a point about the NFL’s ambitions with a smile.
“So, we want people thinking about the NFL 365 days a year, which we do,” Anderson said. “But if there’s a day or two where they can think about soccer, that’s OK.”
The Premier League and the NFL are among the best-suited properties in the world to resist competition, so this is pretty theoretical. (If you know anyone who used to be a big EPL fan but has drifted away in favor of the NFL, let me know.) But, Brass acknowledged, there are only so many winners in the attention economy. “In the end, and maybe taking it on a step to state the obvious, you live in a world where winner takes most,” Brass said.
In the end, he said, it’s not so much about having a certain amount of attention on your sport — it’s about having enough attention, and there is a growing gap between premium properties like the Premier League and the NFL who succeed in that regard, and smaller sports that struggle to capture the public’s eye. “The key thing, though, is to sit [on] the right side of the line where you have the opportunity to have oxygen around your quality product to bring fans in,” Brass said.
To date, the NFL’s international tacticians have viewed major sports brands in their target markets (like Tottenham Hotspur and Real Madrid) as assets, not competitors. Those teams can be sophisticated partners, and they’re proof the market loves sports and spending money on sports.
But if the NFL really does become “the third sport” in a country, then the competition is on. Maybe the elite European soccer clubs don’t worry, but someone else over there might.
