When the Pittsburgh Steelers and the New Orleans Saints walk onto the turf of the Stade de France on Oct. 25, the National Football League (NFL) will stage its first competitive game on French soil. It’s part of a record nine-game international run this season, spanning four continents and seven countries, including London, Madrid, Melbourne, and Rio de Janeiro.
The series is part of the NFL’s strategy to deepen its foothold in Europe. “We’re using the game as a catalyst,” Tim Ellis, the league’s chief marketing officer, tells Fortune. “To get people interested, to get them talking, to get the media to pay attention.” For Ellis, the 80,000 tickets available for the Stade de France game matter far less than the millions of fans the league hopes to convert in the weeks and months after the final whistle.
There are signs the league is generating real demand overseas. London will have hosted 45 games by the end of this season and remains the league’s most mature overseas market. Melbourne and Paris, where Ellis says the league’s fan base has grown past 14 million, are also expected to draw big crowds. Ticket interest for the NFL’s Melbourne match has surpassed the Melbourne Cricket Ground’s 100,000-seat capacity, with more than 151,000 fans registering interest. Meanwhile, more than 600,000 people joined the virtual queue for last year’s Steelers game at Croke Park in Dublin. Ticket and hospitality revenue, Ellis says, pales in comparison to what the NFL hopes to build in media rights, sponsorship, and merchandise deals, once European audiences are converted into fans who watch 50-plus games a year rather than one.
