Europe NFL matches yield $40 million per game

By Manuel Sanchez Gomez

London, Mar 4 (EFE).- The NFL generates an economic windfall of around $40 million every time it visits a European city, the American football league’s Europe chief told Efe in a Friday interview.

London has already slated three NFL games to its calendar of sports events and Munich is expected to be the next host European city.

According to the head of NFL Europe and the United Kingdom, Brett Gosper, each city will turn over around $40 million from each weekend game played at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Wembley and Allianz Arena.

“Europe is a large market for the NFL in a number of areas and we are growing our fanbase across Europe,” Gosper told Efe. “It is a growth market and a market with high potential.”

Frankfurt will also host its first match in 2023.

“We are expanding where those games are. There are economies when you put two games together and even more economies when you put three, so they have been driven both by the size of markets, also the demand by the broadcast market,” the director added.

“We’d love to play games across Europe but there are narrow windows for those to happen and a narrow amount of available inventory so you have to use that in the wisest way you can.”

Some 60 million American viewers are expected to tune into the European games.

Tottenham and Bayern are set to rake in a considerable profit from their NFL deals, which include a hosting fee and revenues from food, drink and merchandise sales.

But the benefit is not only financial. The Tottenham Hotspur and Bayern Munich brands will be given massive exposure across the US, which is the largest sports market in the world.

“There is a spotlight on the team and on the stadium projected throughout the world”

But have American fans felt sidelined by moving games to Europe? According to the NFL Europe chief, the league’s way of dealing with this is by adding a home game to the regular season so fans don’t feel like they are missing out.

“The challenges are really just getting the scheduling right and ensuring that we have enough time to promote these games and commercialize them in time as well,” Gosper said.EFE

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