It wasn’t until Oct. 28, 2007, that the NFL launched its International Series in an effort to start establishing some worldwide interest in the sport.
Since then, rumors of an expansion franchise overseas have always been thrown around, but they’ve never gained any real traction. Even after the league made trips to London, Mexico, Germany and Brazil, all 32 teams are still playing stateside.
At this point, the NFL is simply treading water at the global level.
Forty-seven International Series games have been played, exposing millions of people outside of the United States to American football. Merely scheduling games across the pond or the border isn’t moving the needle any more than it already has.
There’s even a chance that some of these games are spoiling foreigners’ perception of the NFL. Sending a New England Patriots team well past its golden era to London to face the Jacksonville Jaguars back in Week 7 didn’t grow the game, and a meeting between the New York Giants and Carolina Panthers in Munich on Sunday certainly won’t, either.
Expansion is the leap that the league is going to have to make if it truly wants to build a universal audience. If 17 years of International Series games hasn’t led to expansion, what’s it going to take?
Fans in the U.S. aren’t even benefiting from international games at this point. What was once a special treat once or twice a season has now become common practice, and waking up for a 9:30 a.m. ET kickoff isn’t doing anyone any favors on their day off.
Talks of adding another franchise or two to the league need to heat up, and they need to heat up fast if the NFL wants to keep fans outside of the U.S. engaged. Simply adding more and more international games to the schedule on a yearly basis is an act of complacency, especially when those meetings feature low-level talent.
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