I know many of us have brought up the topic of American football being an Olympic sport. Mike Florio of PFT wrote an article about how football could be included in the Olympics. He talks about how the NFL needs "global growth" to make it an Olympic sport. I thought he brought up an interesting point about the IFAF. IFAF stands for International Federation of American Football. The IFAF has been trying to expand football by hosting a Super Bowl-like main event. Its called the IFAF World Cup (similar to fudbal main event, I know). It includes over 20 countries such as Japan, France, Germany, Sweden and United States. Florio says he contacted an NFL spokesmen via email and the spokesman, Greg Aiello, said that "Eventually, football will be an Olympic sport as it continues to grow in popularity around the world". He says that in the next collective bargaining agreement, the NFL should include a 17th or 18th game that would be overseas like the Dolphins-Giants London game last year. If they do that, the game of American football could very well end up in the Olympics. What I found interesting is in the IFAF World Cup, the U.S. won the tournament but it is never brought up in our news. Why is that? It certainly should be as this game continues to expand around the world. If it gets more publicity in the states, it could help get American football in the Olympics.
It'll be a couple of decades before football becomes an Olympic sport. Remember, it took the NBA a long time to internationalize basketball.
Interesting. I concur that it will be maybe a decade or two for it to be an Olympic sport but I thought that the IFAF point was a good one. There's over twenty countries participating in the sport. Is there a certain process that they need to go through to make it an Olympic sport? Since there are several nations already playing it, why can't they make it an Olympic sport?
The emphasis lies on "slowly". Germany is one of the bigger markets outside the US and even here the fanbase is tiny and the amount of people actually playing football is marginal. The main problem I'm seeing in the global expansion of American football is that the game in its modern day format is completely unsuited for European TV markets.
Ooo. Florio said Germany participates in the IFAF World Cup so I figured they would have somewhat of a big fanbase.
Big's a relative term. Compared to almost every other nation outside the US and maybe Great Britain - yeah. But that's not necessarily big in a broader sense. Sure, the NFL Europe was basically a German thing in its last years. You'll sell out an NFL game here in no time at all. But we're talking about a fanbase of several hundred thousand people at best and that's simply not good enough for an extensive TV presence which, in turn, would be crucial regarding kids and teens wanting to actually play the game. And then there's the American TV format. No ordinary German in his or her right mind would endure five or six commercial breaks an hour. Or a game that's artifically blown out of proportion by them. Couple that with the fact that you have to spend a long time watching the game to really grasp it (when you didn't grow up with it) and you have a huge problem for football taking roots anywhere else than in the US.
Ah ok, makes sense now. Do you see football as an Olympic sport in the future despite the lack of a TV presence?
I really don't because I don't see any other nation than the US competing for a long time. Maybe never as you'd need to - as Desides put it - internationalize football and thus face the danger of alienating your American audience and/or networks. Who would the US play against? There's not a single opponent out there and there won't be one as long as football isn't actually played in other countries.
Well, international regular-season games are the first step. I expect the NFL will try to fund start-up leagues, rather than doing things directly ala NFL Europe/Europa. Might not hurt to put teams in Canada and Mexico. I really think Goodell wants the Bills to move to Toronto, and wouldn't mind either moving a team to Mexico City or adding an expansion franchise. Of course, with the reorganization in 2002 and the four divisions per conference setup, they'd have to add 8 teams to make things balanced if they go the expansion route; four teams in a fifth NFC Division, four teams in a fifth AFC Division. (AFC/NFC Continental Division?) I think the trouble is that there aren't enough cities to go around. Even if you gave Los Angeles two teams (or LA one team and Anaheim another team), the list is basically Los Angeles, San Antonio, Toronto, Mexico City, maybe Las Vegas (hey, you never know), maybe Portland, maybe Sacramento, and... what? Oklahoma City? Yeah, right. Actually, now that I think of it, you could just add one team per division to make it 5 teams per. But good luck with the geography. Toronto would be a lock for either the AFC East or North, San Antonio the AFC or NFC South, but beyond that, it's tough to figure out, especially with all the western cities being added. It might require a major realignment. Maybe St. Louis can finally get out of a western division, at least.
You could easily establish a European division. AFC Far East or something in the likes. Logistically it wouldn't be that big a problem considering that flying from Frankfurt or London to Miami or New England doesn't take much longer than flying from Miami to LA or San Diego. And it would serve the means to expand the sport. Then again, I'm not sure sure whether or not the core audience would appreciate that.
Sorry .But American Football is a yawn sport for most international viewers .I know because I have lived overseas for much of my life whether because of the military or business opportunities .In many countries american football is boring and strange . The key basis for this disinterest is that the action is not continual .There are frequent stops and out of 3 hrs of game there is only one hour of action. Thats a antithesis of sports to many viewers who view sports as a continual action not as a board or war game. In short most international viewers are bored by the game mostly because they dont understand it. I equate american football to a physical chess game .Strategy is a big part of the game .Once the international viewer sees that they begin to understand that it is a different kind of sport and they will start to appreciate it especially when they identify with certain players. Its a hard sport to promote and it hasnt helped that American promotional efforts have been sadly lacking but eventually I do think it will take hold once international players the equivalent of Yao Ming of China in basketball start to become stars in the sport.
I wonder what the NFL could do to have a larger fanbase overseas. I'm not sure if just playing overseas will do it.
You'd need a team here, pure and simple. Not just one, come to think of it, but one for every market you want to expand to.
That's about the only way I see if you want the European market. Establish a European division that plays in the NFL. The problem: You'd have to invest massive amounts of cash to get it going and you still can't be sure that it would eventually work out. I don't think the league is prepared to do that. Take a look at what they did with the NFL Europe - they finally go it going to a point where some franchises actually made money and sold out their arenas and then they closed the whole thing down because they were scared to take the next step. That decision alone throws them back years in many, many regards.
