How International is NFL?

For those outside of the US, unless you’re an avid fan of US sports it may be that American Football is a sport that has somewhat passed you by.  Unlike say the online casino world, certain American sports (also including baseball and basketball) are often more US-centric than most, and and course in Europe Rugby is a somewhat ‘similar’ sport that garners more attention from the general public.

Efforts have been made to push more international interest in the NFL (National Football League) such as the NFL International series, which in October 2022 will see three regular-season games take in the UK (Minnesota Vikings vs New Orleans Saints, New York Giants vs Green Bay Packers and Denver Broncos vs Jacksonville Jaguars). Game will also take pace in Mexico and one in Germany. The firm interest though is of course with the home crowd, where week in, week out ardent fans of State teams cheer them on in front of crowds averaging 66,000+ (and 90,000+ for some teams such as the Dallas Cowboys).

The real jewel in the crown of the NFL is of course the Super Bowl though. The 2021 audience for the prestigoues event averaged at 96.4m , but in 2022 that had jumped to 112.3 million for NBC’s coverage, with many more tuning in on other digital networks and the like.  In the 2022 Superbowl LA Rams defeated Cincinnati Bengals 23–20. Sport betting is also a feature of events such as these, on https://www.cancasinos.ca/ and other top sites.

For context the 2021 UEFA Champions League final drew in 275 million viewers, but take into the account the aforementioned global appeal of certain sports. It’s hard to argue with the huge and more concentrated popularity of the NFL Super Bowl, and this goes some way to also explaining the big bucks (and cultural importance) tied to both SuperBowl ads and also the much anticipated Half Time show. The latter has seen a who’s who of world class musicians perform over the years (Prince, U2, Michael Jackson, Beyonce).