France and Spain in the NFL goal

spain y France top the wish list NFL to continue with their European tour, now that Germany and Great Britain are on the match organization calendar.

Los Tampa Bay Buccaneers beat the Seattle Seahawks 21-16 on Sunday in the Allianz Arenawhere Germany will have a contract of four years of NFL and is expected to extend in the long term. Whereas, London has hosted regular season games since 2007.

“We need to do our homework to make sure there’s a chance of a venue to play any game in those markets, gauge interest from host stadiums, gauge interest from the host city, even from the government, in terms of their enthusiasm to help . Let’s bring a game,” said Brett Gosper, director of the NFL for the UK and Europe, to AP.

Spain has a slight advantage because the Chicago Bears and the Miami Dolphins They have local marketing rights in the country. The NFL has doled out international rights to interested teams covering 10 countries, including Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Ghana, Mexico and the United Kingdom. No team has rights in France.

“When you know there are teams operating in (the international rights program), you want to see the prospect and feasibility of having games in those markets at some point,” Gosper said.

There are five international games this season: three in London, one in Munich and one in Mexico City on November 21 when the Arizona Cardinals play the san francisco 49ers.

International expansion was one of the reasons why the NFL added a 17th game to the schedule. The league has committed to playing four international matches each season, with teams required to play a “home” game abroad once every eight seasons. Outside of this commitment, a team with rights in a country can choose to play home games there, as do the Jacksonville in London. The Jaguars they have played nine times in the British capital and are currently on a three-year contract to play an annual “home” game at the 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium.

A team could choose to do that. That’s a real possibility, but again not imminent. Certainly in the next six to 12 months we’ll be really testing the feasibility of our options from a stadium standpoint, not just in Europe but elsewhere, and then at the same time seeing what the appetite is for clubs. to potentially exploit those markets with a game,” he said.

In Spain, Real Madrid’s Santiago Bernabéu stadium is undergoing a redevelopment that will include a soccer field that retracts to make way for an artificial turf field that can be used for American football with a capacity of more than 80,000 spectators. Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which has a long-term deal with the NFL to host London games, has a similar system. The Wanda Metropolitano stadium of Atlético de Madrid has a capacity for 68,000 spectators.

The Camp Nou is the largest soccer stadium in Europe with a capacity of 99,000, but Barcelona plans to start a renovation project that will last until 2026. The city’s Estadio Olímpico de Montjuic seats around 56,000 and was home to the Barcelona Dragons of the NFL.

Gosper said there are “a lot of synergies” with Spain considering the NFL’s large Spanish-speaking fan base. Nine teams have marketing rights in Mexico.

The Stade de France in Paris, has a capacity of just over 80,000 for soccer matches.

“France is a bit outside of that and it’s its own market and culture, but at the same time it’s an incredibly strong sports media market where the returns could be higher and faster than in Spain. Those are both very healthy media markets, healthy sports markets, some strong indicators of our streaming platform as well as our consumer sales. When you mine the data a bit, they certainly are two markets with high potential,” she said.

Elsewhere in Europe, the Nordic markets would be next and “Sweden in particular,” Gosper said. The largest stadium in the country, Friends Arena, tops out at 50,000 fans.

In August 1988, the Bears faced the Minnesota Vikings in a preseason game at Gothenburg’s Ullevi Stadium.

deportes@eleconomista.mx

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