SBJ Football: NFL aiming for 16 games abroad annually

Roger Goodell on Wednesday said the league intends to “ go well beyond ” the current maximum of eight international games each season (plus a ninth under the Jaguars’ unique London arrangement).

Chiefs Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt says the target is double that.

“In the short to medium term, it’s realistic to think the league might play as many as 16 games overseas,” Hunt told me. Hunt has served on the international committee since 2007, including six years as chairman from 2012-17.

A game abroad nearly every week of the season would require a massive investment in overseas operations, but it would accomplish a few things:

1. Put enough games in the Sunday morning window to create a new media-rights package.
   
   
2. Supercharge team interest in marketing abroad (some teams want to do more overseas but think the upside is very limited without playing there regularly).
   
   
3. Allow for more experimentation in new markets like Brazil.

This conversation is closely tied to the emerging discussion of expanding the season to 18 games. It’s not necessarily a prerequisite, but the additional inventory would make it easy to add more abroad without cannibalizing home gate revenue. 

In the U.S., 90% of NFL fans won’t enter a stadium this season, and the business chugs along just fine. In a new market like Brazil, Friday’s game in São Paulo is critical to building the business.

The NFL says 36 million Brazilians have identified as a fan -- the third largest number for any country, behind only the U.S. and Mexico. That’s a strong start, but the league wants to know more about fans in the country.

Eagles-Packers on Friday night will help tease out the most promising targets among those 36 million and start to create a direct marketing relationship, said Peter O’Reilly, NFL EVP/club business, international and league events.

Fans that showed some kind of interest in buying tickets -- but didn’t or couldn’t -- got other gifts from the NFL, like a discount to get NFL games via Game Pass International on DAZN, an invitation to the NFL Experience festival at São Paulo’s Parque Villa-Lobos this weekend or a special offer on merchandise. 

“That's part of the maturation cycle in a market,” O’Reilly said. “We're much more mature in Canada, Mexico, the U.K. and Germany in terms of the depth of that one-to-one relationship, and that's what we've got to build now as we are more active in Brazil.”

The NFL Experience, plus the enlisting of pop star Anitta to perform at halftime, is part of an all-hands effort to make American football break through in Brazilian culture. The NFL also struck a deal with online personality Casimiro Miguel to livestream and call the game on CazéTV, his live sports channel on YouTube and Prime Video. The league also tapped Luis Martinez, a veteran of its Mexico City offices, to become GM of Brazil.

“The game’s a catalyst,” O’Reilly said. “The game is this rallying point, this dropping of a pebble, however you want to describe it.” 

I conducted this interview with O'Reilly before the Brazilian ban on X (formerly known as Twitter). The NFL declined comment on how that ban would affect its marketing. The league will stay silent on accounts in Brazil, but it will maintain usual practices from accounts operated elsewhere.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is no longer serving on the NFL’s media committee, a rare change to the powerful panel that oversees the league’s $12.4 billion annual media licensing business. Jones, who was not replaced, continues to be chairman of the separate media owned-and-operated committee, which handles all the NFL’s in-house media properties. Patriots owner Robert Kraft will continue to chair the main media committee.

That change was disclosed in an Aug. 29 memo from Commissioner Roger Goodell listing all the updated committee rosters for this year. The committees’ evolving makeup is closely watched around the league for signs of specific owners’ and executives’ influence. In Jones’ case, the official NFL explanation is that the two media committees regularly meet together, so he’s still involved in both.

The one-year-old special committee on ownership policy has added a new member: Commanders owner Josh Harris. That’s the committee that crafted the league’s new private equity policy approved last week. Harris joins the Falcons’ Arthur Blank, the Browns’ Jimmy Haslam, Kraft, the Broncos’ Greg Penner and Hunt, who is an ex-officio member via his role as chairman of the finance committee. It’s now also simply known as the Ownership Policy Committee.

Speaking of the finance committee, that group grew by two: Patriots President Jonathan Kraft and Penner were added.

Other committee news of note:

• Colts vice chair Carlie Irsay-Gordon joined the 32 Equity Committee, which oversees the league’s venture investment fund.

• Packers COO Ed Policy, who will assume the CEO role in July from retiring exec Mark Murphy, has joined the fan engagement and major event committee, which oversees the Super Bowl (among other key programs).

• The previously separate “security and fan conduct committee” and the “conduct committee” have merged into a single entity -- the “security and conduct committee.” Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill, who had been chair of both, remains the chair.

• On the Hall of Fame committee, Buccaneers co-chairman Bryan Glazer and Browns EVP JW Johnson have replaced Jimmy Haslam and the Vikings’ Zygi Wilf.

• Several key committee chair roles remain unchanged: the Management Council Executive Committee (John Mara), Legal Sports Betting (Shad Khan); International (Joel Glazer); DEI (Art Rooney II), Stadium (Mark Wilf), Audit (Cal McNair), Business Ventures (Khan), Fan Engagement/Major Events (Jonathan Kraft) and Compensation (Robert Kraft).

There still doesn’t appear to be a path for the NFL to place a permanent franchise abroad. For all the league’s immense wealth and influence, it can’t find a way to make regular transatlantic flights feasible for teams in the heat of the season. Or can it? 

Here's what Clark Hunt said about placing a team, or even an entire division, in Europe: “I can’t look at it right now and say that’s likely to happen,” he said. “One thing that could facilitate it happening would be the reintroduction of supersonic travel.”

That last part is fascinating. From 1969 to 2003, big-spending passengers could take the supersonic Concorde jet across the Atlantic in about 3.5 hours -- half the time it takes for standard commercial flights. But the Concorde went out of service due to its extraordinary operational cost, high fuel consumption and prohibitive pricing for the tickets. 

If the aviation industry and regulators could bring that technology back, everything changes for the NFL. A division in Europe seems completely feasible if teams can get there in 3.5 hours instead of seven or eight (and not go bankrupt doing it).

That brings us to Boom Technology, a Colorado startup with $750 million in venture investment. Its goal is “ affordable supersonic flight for every passenger across every route.” Boom investors include Bessemer Ventures, Prime Movers Lab and American Express. The company has pre-orders for 130 planes from American Airlines, United Airlines and Japan Airlines.

Here’s a look at Boom Technology's self-described “successful” test flight from just last week. And it should be noted that other companies are pursuing this technology , too. 

Boom is targeting 2029 for a launch of flights. To be clear: there are very meaningful financial, regulatory and technical barriers to their success. But the NFL is watching. 

Beyond the Chiefs' success, Clark Hunt has emerged as the NFL’s next-generation ownership leader.

He may not match the larger-than-life personality of Jerry Jones or Robert Kraft, or the sheer wealth of Stan Kroenke or David Tepper, but he’s got the old-school bona fides and the intellect -- to say nothing of the trophy case -- to command attention.

At 59, he is still the fourth-youngest principal owner in the league, and he is already entering his 20th full season in charge of Kansas City while at the same time having become a central figure in the most important matters facing the NFL.

I profiled Hunt for the SBJ cover story this week .

• The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jeff McLane was posting on X from Eagles’ walkthrough today in São Paulo, which surprised me because the app is purportedly banned in Brazil. After I asked the Inquirer how that was possible, the Inquirer’s corporate account posted an explanation: Four Inquirer staffers in Brazil are sending content back to the home office, where staffers are posting on their accounts on their behalf. 

• Sales since Aug. 1 across Fanatics-administered e-commerce sites (which include NFLshop.com, Fanatics.com, and 28 NFL team sites) show the Super Bowl runner-up 49ers as the top-selling NFL team, followed by the Lions, Eagles, and Bears, notes SBJ's Terry Lefton. First-year Bears QB Caleb Williams is showing early strength. He’s both the top-selling rookie and player since Aug. 1.

• Lefton also reports Fanatics is administering six pop-up "NFL Shop" licensed merch stores across São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro to support the Eagles-Packers game this week. There are four in airports, with both event-specific and "a wide swath of NFL teams and licensees" represented. Those stores will be open into October.

• CBS Sports not only overhauled the talent lineup of its Sunday pregame show, "The NFL Today" -- replacing Phil Simms and Boomer Esiason with Matt Ryan and J.J. Watt -- but also upgraded their set, christening it Sean McManus Studio 43 after the retired chairman, reports SBJ's Joe Lemire.

• Gatorade has three new NFL players as endorsers this season -- Ravens QB Lamar Jackson, Vikings WR Justin Jefferson and Rams WR Puka Nacua -- as well as its first flag football player in Mexican national team QB Diana Flores, reports SBJ's Austin Karp.

• Karp also notes Nationwide is spending the bulk of its annual ad spend on a new marketing campaign this fall featuring Peyton Manning.

• Fans attending the Seahawks’ season opener against the Broncos on Sunday at Lumen Field will find two new premium spaces, an expanded presence for T-Mobile and six new Amazon Just Walk Out markets, taking the venue’s total to 15, reports my colleague Bret McCormick. The projects are the latest in a three-year run of renovations and upgrades that commenced in 2022, the 20th anniversary of Lumen Field’s opening.

• The Titans have sold every club seat in the new Nissan Stadium and will launch a second wave of early sales in October, more than six months ahead of schedule.

• It’s going to be a busy fall/winter for ESPN’s Mike Greenberg, who will look to balance regular weekday morning hosting duties on “Get Up” with a pair of new gigs: host of “Sunday NFL Countdown” and host of the weekly podcast “First Draft” alongside Mel Kiper Jr. and Field Yates. The longtime ESPN voice was a guest on the SBJ Sports Media Podcast this week and discussed his new role on "Countdown" and more.

• Ahead of the opening kickoff of the NFL season, Karp and I were joined by N.Y. Times reporter Ken Belson for an episode of SBJ Live to discuss the most important business storylines to watch.