Building interest in the NFL in Europe is a "far more prodigious task than simply selling out Wembley Stadium a few afternoons each fall," and there is a "giant gap between what the NFL is trying to do, and the grass-roots work to grow the sport abroad," according to Jenny Vrentas of THE MMQB. Despite that, if "brands of American football are developing in other parts of the world, the NFL wants its brand to be the main one." The league has offices in the U.K., Canada, Mexico and China, but outside of those countries, it is "largely disconnected from the grass-roots efforts that might grow the game from the bottom up." The Int'l Federation of American Football exists, but the "infrastructure is not strong and in Europe, politics between different countries’ own football organizations have interfered with unified growth." The NFL has statistics that "demonstrate ways in which the London games have encouraged the growth of the game from the ground up: Participation in amateur football in the U.K., for example, has risen by about 15% per year" since the Int'l Series began in '07. But the NFL’s hurdles to establishing a foothold overseas "go well beyond the obvious," such as competition from soccer. Some German officials "still have hard feelings over the impact NFL Europe had on their local club teams." But from the NFL’s perspective, Germany is an "obvious satellite for international growth in the next few years." NFL Exec VP/Int'l Mark Waller estimates that there are "probably more NFL fans in Germany than the U.K. ... thanks to NFL Europe." Also, due to stadium construction for the '06 FIFA World Cup, Waller noted there are "at least five German cities that could host NFL games." Waller: “We could sell them out. We know a game is possible, and we would like to do one" (MMQB.SI.com, 7/24).
