The Miami Dolphins Play A Home Game Against The New York Giants In a Regular Season NFL Game Sunday – The Big Deal About That Being A New Definition Of Home, Like London, As In England

Philip M. Stone October 26, 2007

Go to London’s famed Trafalgar Square and right there in front of Nelson’s column is a 26-foot high model of Miami Dolphin’s defensive end Jason Taylor, wearing what must be the world’s largest football jersey. But “Big JT” won’t be there for long, at the weekend the one-ton electronically animated figure goes on tour of various London communities, accompanied by the Dolphins’ cheerleaders, an NFL tailgate party with American food and live music.

London is doing everything it can to promote this Sunday’s Dolphin’s home game in the newly refurbished Wembley Stadium which is well used to football, but the soccer kind, not so much the American type.

Not that that much promotion is really necessary. Tickets sold out for the event within two hours –there had been requests for 500,000 tickets within 72 hours of the game’s announcement. Wembley holds about 92,000 fans, and it is expected to be filled to capacity. Internationally, the game will be broadcast in 39 countries in 21 languages, and in the UK it will be carried live on satellite TV broadcaster Sky 2, the BBC’s Radio 5, and BBC television will show a special highlights program for Sunday evening. Sky already shows NFL games during the season but the BBC has an added interest – it recently signed to show the Super Bowl live for the next two years.

So what is the NFL doing playing regular season games overseas? It has played exhibition games overseas before, but not a regular season game. It can be summed up in one word: globalization. “We’re number one in the US, but our future success depends in a large part on our ability to globalize,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told reporters in London.

And there are some team owners in the NFL who understand the power of that globalization. Malcolm Glazier, for instance, the owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, took control two years ago of Manchester United, the UK’s most famous soccer club. For many years, mainly the David Beckham years, Manchester United was recognized as earning the highest amount of revenues of any soccer club from overseas sales including TV revenues, sale of licensed goods—T shirts, coffee mugs and the like – because of the club’s global promotion. Today, Real Madrid is number one, also benefitting from its David Beckham days. It goes to show how profitable true international marketing can really be, especially as globalization attracts corporate sponsors, particularly the multi-nationals.

It’s only natural NFL teams would also like to earn big overseas revenues. But how to get to the money? In Europe, for instance, how can American football battle soccer? NFL owners have agreed to play one or two regular season games a year outside the US to build up interest. If the overseas fans can be encouraged to pay big bucks to watch those games in person then if they like the game well enough they’ll also watch on TV and if those numbers are high enough that can draw big TV rights money.

In the UK, perhaps because so many Americans live there, American football has always been somewhat popular. The NFL was active in the 1980s, playing a pre-season American Bowl game in London for eight seasons, but that ended in 1993. Channel Four used to show an NFL game each week, the NFL actually started up a European League – mostly players who couldn’t make it in the US – and while it proved popular the league died after a few seasons. Since then not much has been heard of the NFL in Europe even though Sky does carry games, and a few European countries show the Super Bowl live (which means very late Sunday night and early Monday morning – west coast Super Bowls are a real drag!)

The NFL is hoping the Dolphins, 0-7 this year but 0-10 if last year is included, don’t allow the game to be a blowout – that’s not good for marketing what is supposed to an exciting sport, and the NFL knows an inferior product won’t sell. “Well, we can’t win in America, maybe we can win overseas,” hoped Taylor, last year’s NFL defensive player of the year. 

But for all of this, the NFL is actually late in visiting London this year. The National Hockey League (NHL) held two regular season games in London at the end of September between the Anaheim Ducks and the Los Angeles Kings. Both games were quick sellouts which was notable because while ice hockey is very popular in some European countries such as the Nordics, the UK is not among them. The National Basketball Association (NBA) came to London already a couple of weeks back with the Minnesota Timberwolves going against the Boston Celtics. Those London experiences have the NHL and NBA looking more than ever at the benefits of globalization.

The way the American sports leagues are now looking at Europe is probably best summed up by NHL Commissioner Bill Daly who said after his London games, “I think Europe is going to be a focus. It is a primary growth area for the league. I think we are going to continue to exploit it and base strategy there in the short term, and try to connect more broadly with our fans over there.”

NFL Commissioner Goodell may have over-hyped Sunday’s game by saying this week it was conceivable that a Super Bowl could actually be played overseas. That didn’t go down well at home, and it’s doubtful it will ever happen, but it did show the seriousness of what the NFL is trying to do.

Be that as it may, London politicians have been quick to welcome the American sports leagues to London, and have worked hard to make each event a success. Why? “We are expecting around 10,000 American fans to travel to London to watch the game as well as people from Europe,” Mayor Ken Livingstone said. “For the TV viewers in the US it will be a great opportunity to showcase London to new visitors and for people to see the way we uniquely enjoy our sport.”

Yes, globalization in the opposite direction.

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