October 23rd, 2025
The NFL’s global run began quietly in Tokyo in 1976, when the St. Louis Cardinals met the San Diego Chargers in what was meant to be a friendly preseason test. Instead, it became the first clue that American football could travel.
Nearly fifty years later, that small experiment has turned into a business worth over $110 billion, with franchises valued higher than some Fortune 500 companies. The real question is how a sport most countries never played ended up becoming one of the world’s biggest entertainment brands.
Broadcasting Deals and Sponsorships Built the Cash Machine
The NFL now pulls in about $11 billion annually from Fox, CBS, NBC, and ESPN for the 2023 through 2033 seasons, but that's just the domestic money. They’re now building a separate international rights package projected to add over $1 billion in new revenue from markets still learning the rules.
And even though broadcast rights laid the foundation, sponsorships turned the NFL into a different kind of monster. The Dallas Cowboys alone raked in about $300 million in sponsorship revenue in 2024, and the Los Angeles Rams weren't far behind with nearly $250 million.
There are no sports teams that can come even close to these numbers – over half a billion dollars just from sponsors wanting their logos associated with American football. Nike, Pepsi, and Samsung all scrambled to attach themselves to teams that were suddenly playing in London, Mexico City, and Munich.
This combination of broadcast deals, sponsorships, and offshore investments completely changed how people experienced the NFL. Games kicked off at weird times, teams flew across oceans mid-season, and suddenly you had fans in Tokyo watching live at breakfast while London fans caught primetime games over dinner.
For anyone trying to keep up and find out more about how each game might actually play out, platforms that tracked form, travel schedules, and early odds became part of the routine. They showed how travel and fatigue shaped each matchup, revealing early signs of momentum that old-school stats never caught – especially once time zones blurred what used to be home-field comfort.
What made it work was timing. Once international broadcasts started pulling steady numbers, sponsors poured in, and the networks pushed harder to keep those rights. The audience kept growing, and so did the money behind it. Each deal fed the next one – bigger exposure meant stronger brands, and stronger brands made the next round of games easier to sell. It turned into a loop that kept building without the league ever needing to slow down.
The American Bowl Experiment That Started Everything (1986–2005)
The NFL launched the American Bowl in 1986 to promote football abroad, turning it into a testing ground for global expansion. Every city was chosen deliberately, every fan reaction measured, every sale tracked.
The breakthrough came in 1994, when more than 112,000 fans filled Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca to watch the Cowboys and Oilers – a sign that demand for the sport reached far beyond the U.S.
Every international stop became research, helping the NFL learn how different crowds react to pace, spectacle, and storylines.
NFL Europe’s Expensive Education (1991–2007)
The World League of American Football launched in 1991 with teams on both sides of the Atlantic, aiming to make the sport truly global. London drew over 60,000 fans to the first World Bowl, but enthusiasm could not cover the losses – around $7 million in year one.
The NFL kept it alive for more than a decade, using each season to understand the reality of going international. Spring schedules clashed with soccer, local fans wanted recognizable stars, and constant travel made operations messy and expensive.
By 2007, the project had run its course, but it left the league with something lasting – a clear sense of how to take the real NFL overseas and make it sustainable.
Franchise Values Skyrocketed
The financial side of the NFL has reached a new level, with the average team now worth about $7.1 billion, up almost 20% in a single year. The Dallas Cowboys lead at close to $13 billion, a result of decades spent building global partnerships and pushing the league’s presence overseas.
Teams like the San Francisco 49ers, now valued around $8.6 billion, are taking the same approach – building their reach through overseas marketing, media deals, and long-term brand projects.
The league’s move to let private equity buy small stakes has only added more money to that push, funding everything from international events to youth programs that keep new fans coming in. In many ways, the rising valuations show how the NFL’s global strategy has become just as important as what happens on the field.
The International Series Changed the Game
By 2007, the NFL had finally figured out how to make its global plans work – by sending real competition overseas. London became the test site, drawing steady crowds that proved interest ran deeper than novelty.
From there, the league expanded to Germany and Mexico, tailoring broadcasts, travel, and stadium setups to handle full-season intensity. What started as a single showcase turned into a permanent fixture on the calendar, and the success of those games pushed the league to scale up again.
The goal now is broader than revenue. More cities, more games, and a league that no longer feels purely American – proof that the NFL’s next era will be built as much abroad as at home.