In a move that we prefer to regard as a double-barreled middle finger to the man who says the NFL will never succeed in foreign countries, the league announced today that it will be marketing broadcast rights in "certain international markets."
IMG Sports Media has been hired to assist in the sale of the rights, with the target markets in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
"We are pleased to partner with IMG to continue to grow our international
distribution of NFL programming," Steve Bornstein, NFL Executive Vice
President, Media, said in a release. "We are excited to deliver more games and content to NFL
fans around the world."
The games will be televised with audio in the various local languages. (In the hopes of being hired for the Khazak version of the broadcast, Borat Sagdiev is boning up on the game.)
NFL looking to sell broadcast rights in other countries
Posted by Mike Florio on July 13, 2009 8:54 AM ET
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Good luck Goodell,,,just don't see there being enough interest world wide to support this. the nfl put teams in other countries and failed already..
and how is soccer, the most popular sport worldwide doing in america?
it seems rather arrogant to think that because the NFL is America's pastime that it can be pushed on other countries and will become the most popular sport in the world.
i know plenty of people from other countries where soccer is big and when i ask them about football they tell me they can't wait for the World Cup.
Borat: Quarterback put hands under center balls.
If the NFL wants to encourage American football abroad, it should GIVE AWAY video rights to foreign cable networks, at least for the first few years. Most of them would be glad to carry NFL network for free, even if they know that it won't attract much ad revenue.
Florio,
Would a percentage of the money made from these rights immediately go towards the salary cap?
Or does only the American rights currently count?
So lets just say it cost the nfl $10 to broadcast this to the rest of the world. Do you even think they will get $5 back? I doubt it. They have only had 2 games played in europe, and they didn't even sellout those games. The only people that would be interested in this idea are the .0000001% of americans that live in other countries, who are diehard nfl fans. I'm sorry, but this article made me laugh out loud. It was like Florio saying, "See MMA, we (the nfl, which you are not apart of) are popular around the world too!"
ok florio, if you say so. whateva helps you sleep at night.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH
The NFL has to find SOME way to re-pay all those people who make their merchandise, right?
This is really not a significant move. The significant move would be to successfully sell the rights. Anyone can market the rights to anything. I could begin to market my rights to countries and it wouldn't mean a damn thing unless one of those countries took me up on my offer. This is only a story once they have a transaction in place, or if it is a slow news day.
England,Germany and Denmark allready has live brodcasts in every time slot. so there is a market for the nfl.
And those 2 games in London did sell out in record time - for the Giants- doplins game in 07 iI attemted to buy ticktes though 18 diffrent E-mails... no luck.
There IS enough interest in the world to support it... they just don't realize they're interested yet. There's not another sport out there that can hold a candle to the dramatics of a pro football game. It's entertaining, and with the right marketing, they'll dig it.