Sao Paulo (AFP) – The National Football League breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy on Friday when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever gridiron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians.
The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread America’s most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures in London, Munich, Frankfurt, Toronto, and Mexico City. Spain will host a regular season game in 2025 at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium, home of European football giants Real Madrid. The NFL has said there are around 38 million American football fans in Brazil, of whom 8.3 million are described as avid. That makes Brazil the second-largest international fan base after Mexico, according to the league.
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The NFL has made it clear that it sees Brazil as a regular venue for games in the future, with Friday’s game effectively establishing a beachhead for the sport. “The fundamental strategy is really a focus on becoming a true global sports property and growing the game and the fan base around the world,” the NFL’s executive vice-president of international events, Peter O’Reilly, said. “We’ve seen when we’ve gone to a market with a game like Germany a few years ago, where we’ve committed to play, you’ve seen the demand, the passion and then the impact.”
No sport, however, is likely to dethrone football as Brazil’s national obsession, and Friday’s NFL game will be competing for attention with Brazil’s 2026 World Cup qualifying game against Ecuador in Curitiba. Yet the South American country has a long record of embracing American culture, with the NBA increasingly regarding Brazil as a key international market. In the NFL’s case, the sport’s profile was also boosted by quarterback icon Tom Brady’s 13-year marriage to Brazilian supermodel Gisele Bundchen.
But the buzz around Friday’s fixture in Sao Paulo has not been shared by some of the participants, with Philadelphia players A.J. Brown and Darius Slay revealing that they had been advised not to leave the team hotel due to concerns over crime. Slay said that while he was looking forward to the fixture, he did not want to go to Brazil. “They already told us not to leave the hotel. They told us we can’t do too much going on, because the crime rate is crazy,” Slay said.
“I’m like ‘NFL, why would you want to send us somewhere with a crime rate this high?'” Slay later apologized for the remarks, insisting he had not meant to cause offense. “I’m looking forward to playing in your beautiful country,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
In purely sporting terms, Philadelphia coach Nick Sirianni will be looking for a fast start from new signing Saquon Barkley, while hoping to see his team adjust following the retirement of center Jason Kelce and defensive tackle Fletcher Cox. Green Bay coach Matt LaFleur, meanwhile, will look to rising star quarterback Jordan Love to lead a young Packers team to victory.
© 2024 AFP
