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It’s one of the more interesting discussions generated since Jarryd Hayne’s startling announcement last week. How much does America’s most popular sport care about its Australian audience?
Is the league ever going to send another game to our shores?
And what role, if any, might Hayne’s journey – as a highly marketable NRL star trying to master America’s game – play in expanding the NFL in Australia?
In the wake of Hayne’s sensational press conference on Wednesday a colleague of mine – an experienced sports journalist – suggested what we’d just witnessed was a clever NFL ploy.
Perhaps the league was in on it from the beginning, keen to poach one of Australia’s biggest sporting stars to grow American Football Down Under.
Maybe the NFL would encourage a lesser franchise to use Hayne as a project player. Sign him to a modest rookie contract, develop him for a season or two and if it works out then the NFL has a legitimate good news story and as many as thousands of new fans. If not, then at the very least it’s a good public relations exercise for the NFL.
I was skeptical and told him there was very little to suggest that Australia – its athletes or fans – are even on the NFL’s radar. The last time the league sent a game to Australia was 15 years ago, the 1999 America Bowl between the then Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos and San Diego Chargers.
The America Bowl was a series of NFL preseason exhibition games held outside the US between 1986 and 2005. The league abandoned the slate of games in 2007, the same year it got rid of NFL Europe, citing a new international strategy and focus on sending regular season games to London.
Since 2007, the NFL has played nine regular season games in Wembley Stadium and while the quality of the product hasn’t always been high, the games have averaged more than 80,000 fans. The league scheduled one game a season between 2007 and 2012. Last year they played two games across the pond, this year there will be three.
The more games sent to London and the more momentum the initiative gains the less likely the NFL will ever play a meaningful game in Australia. The UK just makes too much sense. It’s only an eight-hour flight from New York, not much longer than a sojourn out to the west coast, and the primetime slot in London is a 1pm kick-off on the east coast of the US.
Whereas for Australia, the difference in time zones would make it near impossible to schedule a game that would both attract a sell-out crowd and be screened live on primetime in America. The travel would be deemed too disruptive for NFL teams during a short 16-game season and the rest required to play an NFL game would mean only one match could be played, unlike the MLB or NBA which can play back-to-back games or games on short rest.
It’s clear the logistical problems meant the NFL tossed this one into the too hard basket long ago. But the debate over whether Australian fans will ever see their favourite players in the flesh and on home soil has ramped up in recent years as the game’s popularity has increased.
Queensland premier Campbell Newman has been an unlikely advocate and has repeatedly said he wants the NFL to send a game to Brisbane’s Suncorp Stadium. Despite a meeting in New York and an invite for the league to come and check out the facilities in Queensland, nothing has solidified.
The possibility of Australia hosting more US sporting franchises was discussed again in March this year during the build-up to Major League Baseball’s opening series of games at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
MLB senior vice president of international business operations Paul Archey said the landmark games would pave the way for the NBA and NFL to schedule regular-season fixtures in Australia. He predicted the United States’ major sporting bodies would be keeping a close eye on the success of the weekend’s venture Down Under as part of a global search for the next region they can grow their game.
The event was a huge success. Nearly 80,000 fans crammed in over the two regular season games and the crowds remained until the end of the ninth innings to show their appreciation for the unfamiliar superstars who made the long trip to Australia to entertain. But it didn’t lead to any dialogue from the NFL.
So how much does the NFL care about its Australian fans? Enough to know we exist? Yes, but only just. The reason for that is the NFL makes so much money domestically.
In 2013, the total revenue for the NFL was somewhere just north of $9 billion, meaning the league remains the most lucrative in the world. Not content with that, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is aspiring for more. He wants to reach $25 billion in annual revenues for the league by the year 2027.
As for TV ratings, 205 million unique US viewers tuned into the NFL during 2013, representing 81 per cent of all television homes and 70 per cent of potential viewers in the US, according to The Neilsen Company.
For the second consecutive year, NFL games were the most watched TV show during all 17 weeks of the regular season and accounted for 34 of the 35 most viewed shows overall. Over the past decade, average viewership of NFL games on broadcast television has increased 31 per cent from 15.5 million in 2003 to 20.3 million in 2013.
These are all huge numbers and show the incredible popularity the sport enjoys in the US. Even the negative publicity the league copped after the domestic violence scandal couldn’t shake their numbers, with Americans tuning in to watch football in greater numbers this year than they did last. It’s quite remarkable.
So, what about the idea of using Hayne to grow the game in Australia? Is it worth it? You could argue yes. It may only cost the NFL a few million dollars and could lead to an increase in merchandise sales, NFL game pass subscriptions and overall a bigger fan-base, which the NFL could use as leverage the next time its broadcast deal is up for renewal. But, the more obvious question is will they?
Probably not. The NFL is a proven product. Despite the concussion crisis, domestic violence scandals and questions around the new drug policy, the league is a juggernaut that cannot be stopped. It doesn’t need gimmicks to attract fans; it has the best athletes in the world, playing in arguably the most competitive league in the world.
The best Australian fans could hope for is that we host the NFL Pro Bowl, the annual All-Star event traditionally held in Hawaii. The game would attract a huge number of domestic and international fans and the US media spotlight would be on Australia during the biggest sporting week of the year, the build-up to the Super Bowl.
But, most importantly, it could go some of the way to repaying Australian fans for their years of patronage.
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