Q+A: The NFL’s plan to turn Australia into a nation of fans
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What was the fan turnout for the NFL’s first regular‑season game in Melbourne?
Welcome to Fear and Greek QA, where we ask and answer questions about business, investing, economics, politics, and more. I'm Sean Aylmer. This month, the NFL staged its first ever regular season game in the Asia Pacific, and Australia turned out in force. More than 100,000 fans packed the MCG for the clash between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers, with almost half the ticket holders traveling from interstate. Or overseas. The free-to-wear broadcast reached almost 2.2 million viewers, while Adobe Data shows online traffic for NFLT merchandise jumped 88% compared with last year's opening weekend. For the NFL, though, Melbourne isn't just about one game, it's part of a much bigger push to turn one of America's biggest sporting brands into a genuinely global one.
And technology is playing a major role in finding and encouraging Yeah. Charlotte Offord is general manager of NFL Australia and New Zealand, Adobe which works with the NFL on its fan engagement technologies, great supporter of ours here at Fair Ingrid. Charlotte. After a very long introduction, welcome to Fear and Greed QA. Thank you, Sean. Matt, thank you for having me. You had one hundred thousand and twenty one people at the MCG. Almost half came from overstate and interseas. I know you've been working on this for not weeks, not months, but years, but did the response and the success surprise you?
It did surprise me a little bit. I think certainly not from a hundred thousand seat stadium. Obviously we t we sold out with tickets quite a few months back, but um
How did the NFL’s Australian team react to the unexpected crowd size and enthusiasm?
You know, we we we we came into this journey um four years ago with no game as part of our narrative. We we we were building a business, we were building foundations, we were trying to grow our fan base and gr and try and grow one for the long term. So it was really about investment in the market. Um but because of the reception that we've received from the Australian fans, um that's the reason this game is existing. So going into this period and and leading into this game, a lot of hard work went into it. it, but I would say I certainly last Friday felt that my expectations of it were blown out the window and I had very high hopes, very big dreams for what we were going to deliver. Um but it was a fantastic day and just to see the crowd really engage with our product was a really special moment for us.
In a sense, how do you take it from that one off game, which is a bit of a novelty for Australians? We know about NFL. It's not an Australian game, it's a deeply American game. And I think some of the Netflix series has probably helped us all understand it a bit better. But how do you take what you've done now and encourage NFL in Australia?
Yeah, look, it's a it's a variety of different things that we would play at to ensure that people learn our game, are educated about our game, and then become fans of our game. Um one of those strategies obviously is is playing a regular season game in market, and that's obviously a big part of the strategy in in the fact that you give someone a tangible product and you give some someone a tangible way to passionately be attached to a sport live. Um There's nothing better than that. But we also look at things around, you know, flag football. We've we've invested in flag football in this market for the last four years. We see the correlation between kids playing the game and then the next year they come back head to toe in merchandise.
They're watching ESPN, they're consuming games on a Monday morning.
What strategies is the NFL using to turn a one‑off game into a lasting Australian fan base?
Um, they're consuming games on a Friday, they're watching highlights, they're on social media, and so we see the correlation between that. the flag and just learning the basics of the rules of the game and participation to that, but also through just being present in across multiple verticals. So whether that's fashion, food, lifestyle, um, gaming, all those types of verticals where we try and organically show up in a way that we think our fans will receive us without it feeling forced, that's a a huge part of the strategy as well.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What was the fan turnout for the NFL’s first regular‑season game in Melbourne?
0:06–1:40
2
How did the NFL’s Australian team react to the unexpected crowd size and enthusiasm?
1:40–3:26
3
What strategies is the NFL using to turn a one‑off game into a lasting Australian fan base?
3:26–5:12
4
How are flag‑football programs and merchandise driving deeper engagement in Australia?
5:12–6:46
5
Who does the NFL consider its biggest competitors in the Australian sports market?
6:46–8:48
6
In what ways is Adobe‑powered technology personalising the fan journey?
8:48–10:15
7
What metrics does the NFL use to define success in the Australian market?
10:15–11:37
8
Will there be more regular‑season NFL games in Australia and what’s the long‑term plan?
11:37–11:48