Usually, this space deals with international affairs, politics, and finance, but, for a change, this month the coverage will be devoted to the state of football and baseball in America and how the two sports have spread to the rest of the world.

The NFL Is On A Path of Global Conquest

Since 2005, the NFL has scheduled games in other countries, much to the delight of fans of American football in England, Mexico, and Germany, Canada, and soon, Brazil and Spain.

The first regular season NFL game played outside the United States was in 2005, when the Arizona Cardinals topped the San Francisco 49ers, 31-14, at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City. The game drew an incredible 103,467 fans, which still stands as the largest crowd to attend an NFL game.

The International Series began with an October 2007 game between the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium in London, England, which was a rousing success, attended by more than 81,000 fans, with the Giants posting a 13-10 victory.

Through the 2023 season, the NFL has had 36 games played in England, five in Mexico (2005, 2016-2022), three in Germany (2022, 2023), and has one scheduled in Brazil in 2024 (September 6, Green Bay vs. Philadelphia). Future locations include Spain, with a game to be held in Madrid at an unspecified date.

Additionally, the Buffalo Bills played six games at Toronto's Rogers Center in Canada from 2008-2013.

Promoting the NFL brand internationally was not always successful. Prior to 2005, the NFL pushed the American Bowl, a series of preseason games played at various locales around the world, and NFL Europe, a European-based developmental league. The American Bowls ended in 2005, with NFL Europe folding in 2007.

Those early disappointments did not deter the NFL from seeking further international exposure. Under the leadership of Commissioner Roger Goodell, who has been in that position since 2006, the NFL's concept of playing games in other countries took hold, and, by any account, have been extremely successful, with most games selling out within days of tickets becoming available, often as far as nine months in advance of the actual contests the vast majority of spectators citizens of the host countries, with as little as three percent being Americans.

In 2022, the National Football League announced the International Home Marketing Areas initiative, wherein 25 NFL teams were selected to market their team across various countries. The plan proved to be popular among NFL franchise owners, and was expanded in 2023 and 2024, with marketing initiatives spanning 19 countries, as far flung as Argentina, France, Australia, Colombia, Ghana, Nigeria, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland, China, and elsewhere.

Some of the specifics of the program include sponsorships, live events, and merchandise sales, as well as priority to compete in the selected countries. Some of the more ambitious franchises include the Los Angeles Rams, with marketing arms in Mexico, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, China, and Australia. The Miami Dolphins, with a large and growing Hispanic following, have extended their reach into Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Spain. Teams situated in cities close to the Canadian border - Lions, Vikings, and Seahawks - have commitments in Canada, an obvious fit for marketing and potential game sites.

The growing popularity of perennial playoff contender Kansas City has spurred promotional efforts in Switzerland, Mexico, Germany, and Austria, while the Pittsburgh Steelers have pursued plans in Mexico, Ireland, the UK, and Germany. The most popular countries are Mexico and Germany, each with ten teams designated with marketing rights. Based upon the success of games at an international level, the NFL and its franchisees appear committed to developing their collective and individual brands around the world.

Beyond marketing and physical presence, the NFL derives significant revenue from television rights, streaming, cable, and satellite deals, and its own NFL Network. According to Forbes, the NFL is guaranteed $125.5 billion over the next decade, amounting to nearly $4 billion per team, according to deals finalized in 2023 with entities including ESPN, Fox, CBS, NBC, Amazon, and Alphabet (YouTube).

Add in the more than $4 billion in annual merchandise sales - hats, jerseys, memorabilia, balls, etc. - and it's clear that the NFL has achieved rock star status as global merchandisers and promoters.

Baseball Has Been a Worldwide Sport for Centuries

Historically known in England as "Rounders" and similar in some aspects to modern day cricket, baseball's roots stretch as far back as 18th century England and probably, in some form or another, well beforehand.

Many Americans revere the folk hero, Abner Doubleday, a Union Major in the U.S. Civil War, as the inventor of the game of baseball, the wholly fictional account promoted by the Mills Commission, a group formed in 1905 by Abraham Mills, Albert Spalding and Henry Chadwick specifically to determine the origin of baseball. Baseball historians have completely debunked the Doubleday myth.

In terms of its North American nomenclature, Eastern U.S. and Canadian participants were largely responsible for codifying the rules of the modern game as it evolved from as early as the 1760s, played by colonists and later arrivals from Europe.

The earliest organized league in the United States was the National Association of Base Ball Players (NABBP), consisting of 16 New York City area teams in 1857. Organized baseball is played in countries around the world, some of the earliest leagues formed in Australia, Canada, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Korea, Venezuela, Mexico, Taiwan, and elsewhere, putting to rest the notion that baseball is an American-spawned sport, though the world's largest and most popular league is Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States. That is not to say that baseball isn't popular in other countries. Organized baseball is played in as many as 80 countries, and possibly more, on every continent.

In the United States, the first professional league of stature was the National League (known as the "Senior Circuit" by purists), formed in 1876, and followed by the American League in 1901, from that date forward recognized as the modern era. The American Association and various Negro Leagues were formed in the 1880s, though all of them failed.

With the prominence of the two rival leagues established, baseball grew in popularity in the United States, especially thanks to heated pennant races, widespread media adoption, and the World Series, contested between the AL and NL since 1903. Like the NFL, Major League Baseball itself has become a global brand, drawing regular viewership of more than a million on ESPN and FOX network broadcasts, and many more over the internet, mainly on the popular MLB.TV.

In terms of revenue, Major League Baseball is dwarfed by the NFL due to the sport still being largely fragmented and nationalized. MLB generated approximately $11.34 billion in 2023, a number that was 10% greater than in 2023, and expected to grow by five to ten percent in 2024.

The worldwide popularity and accessibility to players of all sizes and ages is undisputed, and for overall reach, baseball - and its stepchild, softball - given its deep European and North American roots, is much more a participant sport than American football and ranks higher, in terms of fan base, than football.

Indeed, American football and U.S. based baseball, primarily MLB, have significant reach and generate billions in revenue from ticket sales, media rights, and merchandise sales but are overshadowed in terms of popularity worldwide by futbol, or soccer, as it is known in America, cricket, field hockey and tennis, each sport's estimated fan base beyond a billion strong.

A list of worldwide sports popularity might look something like this table below, though the actual numbers - as large as they are - can merely be estimated and hardly quantified.