How the NFL is trying to land a foothold in Australia

Charlotte Offord is the first full-time Australia/New Zealand General Manager of the NFL. She is a one-woman band. The NFL's new Australian office is at her house.

Offord worked on the 2012 London Olympics. He has been working with the NFL in the UK for the past 10 years. 30 NFL regular season games have been played in London since 2007. Minnesota will take on New Orleans in first of three games for 2022.

The NFL has 7.3 million fans in Australia, 1.5 million of them 'avid fans' who follow the team in various ways. The league is investing in the market to grow the number of avid fans. It's focusing on youth market.  Offord is from the UK and she's implementing a version of that strategy from there. She's looking for touch points, social media, influencer marketing and fan events. For more information on the NFL in Australian, visit their website. They tend to over-index internationally on younger fans, so they're doubling down on marketing.

The NFL is launching a pilot program for flag football in Australian schools for the first time. Ten schools in Queensland and Northern NSW will be the the very first to experience it over a six-week period. The winning team in the 10-12 year old age bracket will earn an all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas to represent Australia in flagfootball competition around the Pro Bowl in February. The NFL plans to expand the program exponentially in schools over the next few years.

The NFL is taking an active role in Australia as a player development region. The governing body of Gridiron Australia has been in operation since 1996. There are eight Australians currently playing in the NFL. A new schools program will help provide a formal structure and pathway for potential converts. Jordan Mailata signed a $64 million contract extension with the Philadelphia Eagles last year. He went through the program in 2018 and then made his NFL debut in 2020.