Aaron
Conrad Perez Rodriguez
ENT
MKT 4330
May
6, 2019
Professor
Akopian
California State University of Los Angeles
Introduction
Since the 1800’s, major league sports has looked to
expand globally. Most professional leagues’ strategies include partnerships
with big name brands such as Nike or Gatorade as well as giving fans access to
the stars of the game through camps, autograph signings etc. Some sports have
been successful at attracting new fans internationally such as the NBA, while
other leagues such as the NFL have not been as successful in capturing these
audiences. This paper will review the history of the efforts of the NBA and the
NFL to globalize their sport, as well as what strategies they have used and
continue to use to establish or maintain a strong presence in countries
internationally to become global brands. The paper will also review why one
league has been successful while the other has not and what the struggling
league can do to improve its global brand awareness through various marketing
tactics. Where are all your citations?
Football
Globalization Journey
The game of football started in Canada and the
United States in the 1800s and since then has grown to one of the most popular
sports in those countries (footballcanada.com). In the 1930s football had been
introduced to Japan and gained popularity in the country becoming the first
country outside of North America to establish a league. In the 1970s a real
push began for football globalization. However, a major effort was not given
until the 1980s which helped build the foundation for a new league to be established.
In 1991 NFL Europe was created, the purpose of the league was to develop talent
to play in the NFL as well as introduce the rest of the world to the sport. In
1999 the first World Championship was held in Palermo, Italy which involved six
countries; Mexico, Japan, Sweden, Australia, Finland and the host country
Italy. The winner of this first championship was Japan where they beat Mexico
6-0. In 2005 the NFL introduced its American Bowl, the American Bowl was
a series of games during the preseason played around the world to try and
showcase to the rest of the world the game of football. In 2007 NFL Europe was
shut down due to lost money, running through television partners and focusing
most of their resources on Germany despite producing Hall of Famers such as
Jake Delhomme and Kurt Warner (Gold, 2017). The league lacked excitement and
everyone watching knew that the players that were playing were not the best and
had little chance in making it to the NFL. Other problems included that the
league was mostly backed by the European media, once the media realized people
knew that they weren’t getting the quality talent they wanted media companies
stopped bankrolling the league (Forbes, year). Despite the failure of NFL
Europe, the NFL expanded their American Bowl series to regular season games,
where now a few times a year the teams go to London to play bringing in over
80,000 fans per game. Although football has had success with the American Bowl
series they fail to establish leagues worldwide to make the NFL global.
NFL Strategies for
Globalization
The NFL has mixed success on their globalization
efforts. In Mexico, they have been extremely successful with the most fans
internationally according to Statista there are 23.3 million fans and 19.7
million fans in Brazil. Huge drop-offs in numbers of fans begin in Canada at
7.21 million and continue to decline from there (Statista). Their
success in Mexico is largely due to the fact that they established partnerships
with popular American brands in Mexico such as Bud Light, Pepsi, and Dodge as
well as popular Mexican brands Movistar and Sabritas (McDuling, 2017) The next
step that the NFL took was to make deals with cable providers in Mexico by
giving the rights to televise nine games per year exposing the youth to the
game and is becoming popular among this segment of television viewers Due to
this high schools and colleges around Mexico have been establishing teams. To
capitalize, the NFL partnered with schools by donating footballs and equipment
and today in Mexico, 2.9 million students play football in their gym classes
according to the National Football League. Fans in Mexico of football who
prefer it over soccer do so according to an LA Times article because of its
focus on strategy, teamwork, and discipline. Despite all these efforts in
Mexico, less than 1% of players are Latino. Although there is a moderate
success in Mexico through most of the world the NFL is unsuccessful in
establishing their league and stars. According to Forbes the reasons for this
is the name is confusing in a game with the word “foot” in it there are almost
no feet used in it. Another reason is that is the lack of action in the game,
according to a study by the Wall Street Journal NFL games have an average of 11
minutes of action in a 3-hour game. Other reasons include that they fail to be
internationally accepted is that they have a perception of not being manly
enough compared to rugby because of players wearing pads. However, most of
their failure is due to their lack of visibility of the league on television
networks and online as well as their failure to capitalize on current league
partnership brands globally
NBA Globalization
Journey
Basketball started its globalization quest in 1893
by Melvin Rideout in France at the new YMCA building on Paris’s Rue de Trévise
which is the oldest original court in the world today (Krassnoff 2017). The next year the game expanded to Brazil to become the
first country in South America to play basketball. In 1895 Basketball was
introduced into China in the cities of Shanghai and Tianjin and two years later
it entered Australia. Basketball started to become large in multiple countries
but didn’t become a global brand till the NBA started to intervene with the
“Dream Team” and touring the stars around the world with the help of sneaker
companies. Basketball has become one of the most popular sports with 825
million fans globally and 108 international players from 42 different countries
in its most prominent league in the NBA. The global diversity of the league has
established the league to have “active fans” in 114 countries[MC1] .
NBA Globalization
strategy
Although basketball had been introduced into many
countries since the 1800s the NBA started its global expansion and rebirth of
the league started in 1984. David Stern, the commissioner of basketball and the
league decided to televise the games internationally and the Celtics vs Lakers
rivalry helped reignite the league in the United States as well as expand their
fans globally. In that same year the first European-born and trained player
France’s, Hervé Dubuisson to the New Jersey Nets and through the 1980’s more
players came to the NBA bypassing the NCAA. In the 1990’s the arrival of
Michael Jordan intrigued the fans domestically and globally and 2 years later
the “Dream Team” excited the world about the game of basketball and showed them
all the stars of the game (Worldwide, 2017). This became the catalyst for the
exponential growth of the game, kids’ interest in the game increased who now
dreamed of playing in the most elite league in the world the NBA. The NBA has
also developed partnerships with sneaker companies and have worked hard to
maintain their stranglehold on international markets by touring stars around
the country to encourage the public to buy their product, establishing camps to
show the shoes in action as well as for scouts to see talent overseas. These
efforts have been successful in showing the quality of the league and inspiring
the next generation of athletes to pursue the sport of basketball and grow up
to be like their idols. The US coaches
decided to set up camps for these kids to capitalize on the new interest of the
youth sparked by foreign stars like Manu Ginobli and Dirk Nowitzki with the
help of the growth of satellite television and the internet, there were new
platforms to watch the games.
Which League is Better?
The[MC2] NFL has a
challenging task when trying to establish their league in many different
countries since athletes must not only be tall but also big. They can fix this by developing their talent
in established countries such as Mexico and Brazil. This will create stars that
kids can look up to just like how kids who watch basketball can look up to
European and Chinese players. The NFL can expand their popularity by increasing
visibility. The league must look into working together with foreign television
providers to show their games in those markets. Other tactics they can use is
to provide games on online streaming platforms such as Amazon to foreign
countries and use social media to promote these games. Currently, Rugby is the
9th most popular sport in the world according to World
Atlas[MC3] . There are a lot of
similarities between the two games which means that there is room in other
countries for football to grow. In order to get the youth into the sport, the
NFL can establish flag football leagues all over targeted countries. According
to an LA Times article, the appeal of football in Mexico is the strategy
and teamwork (Linthicum,
2017[MC4] ). The NFL can
target countries which rugby is popular and established leagues in the
offseason. This can be perceived by the youth as a way to keep in shape for
rugby but when the coaches show how fun and strategic the game can be they can
convert these players to football players. During the off-season they can bring
in NFL stars to run camps and have corporate sponsors such as Pepsi, Microsoft
and Amazon provide attractions to bring in the youth. Sponsorships has proven
to be successful in Mexico and if they replicate this strategy in other
countries around the world. This influence can lead to developing stars from
other countries those countries will feel pride for their fellow countrymen and
support them and whatever team they are on, which will also benefit the league
by providing new fans who buy tickets, provide free advertising through social
media as well as increasing revenues of merchandise. Currently, the NFL is
failing at expanding their league globally but if they decide to develop the
youth of other countries to become stars in the league they will be able to tap
into new markets. Too long for one paragraph, be mindful of structure
Bullman, E.
(2018, December 17). The NFL Seeks More Mexican Brand Sponsorship. Retrieved
May 5, 2019, from http://www.mexiconewsnetwork.com/en/news/the-nfl-seeks-more-mexican-brand-sponsorship/
Gold, J. (2017,
June 23). 10 years after NFL Europe's demise, alumni remember league fondly.
Retrieved from
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/19638357/oral-history-10-years-nfl-europe-demise-alumni-such-kurt-warner-remember-developmental-league-fondly
International
Federation of America Football (IFAF). (2016, September 13). Retrieved May 5,
2019, from
http://footballcanada.com/team-canada/international-federation-of-america-football-ifaf/
Keeler, S.
(2016, June 23). 'You didn't play to get rich': What killed NFL Europe?
Retrieved May 5, 2019, from
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jun/23/you-didnt-play-to-get-rich-what-killed-nfl-europe
Krasnoff, L. S.
(2017, December 26). How the NBA went global. Retrieved May 5, 2019, from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/12/26/how-the-nba-went-global/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ce71bd9c9cc6
Linthicum, K.
(2017, November 17). Football - the American kind - is all the rage in Mexico.
Retrieved May 5, 2019, from
https://www.latimes.com/world/mexico-americas/la-fg-mexico-nfl-football-20171024-story.html
McDuling, J.
(2017, November 23). The NFL is struggling. The AFL and NRL should take note.
Retrieved May 5, 2019, from
https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/the-nfl-is-struggling-the-afl-and-nrl-should-take-note-20171123-gzr2d4.html
McMahon, B.
(2012, October 28). A Dozen Reasons Why The NFL Will Never Make It Outside Of
The USA. Retrieved May 5, 2019, from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbymcmahon/2012/10/28/a-dozen-reasons-why-the-nfl-will-never-make-it-outside-of-the-usa/#30b299331c3b
Sandomir, R.
(2007, June 30). N.F.L. Pulls the Plug on Its League in Europe. Retrieved May
5, 2019, from https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/sports/football/30nfl.html
Sawe, B. E.
(2016, September 16). The Most Popular Sports in the World. Retrieved May 5,
2019, from
https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/what-are-the-most-popular-sports-in-the-world.html
Willner, B.
(2014, September 28). American football growing quickly in Brazil. Retrieved
May 5, 2019, from
https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2014/09/27/american-football-growing-quickly-in-brazil/16335685
Worldwide, B.
(2017, December 26). How the NBA Positioned Itself as a Global League.
Retrieved May 5, 2019, from https://www.boldworldwide.com/bold-marketing-blog/nba-positioned-itself-global-league
74/75
[MC1]Citations citations citations.
Any Master’s program would have marked down an entire grade by now
[MC2]Writing 101, indent at the
beginning of a paragraph
[MC3]Why italicized
[MC4]Check formatting APA
[MC5]Over all good paper, great
content. You know your stuff and took initiative to research HOWEVER you have
to have to get the APA book I suggested on our syllabus if you are going to
make it in a Master’s program. Please. I’m proud of the effort and time. Shine
on
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