The NFL still hopes to play a regular-season game in China in the next two to three years, said Mark Waller, the NFL’s executive vice president of international.
Last year, the NFL dropped efforts to play a game in 2018 in China, as issues including logistics, timing and even air pollution proved too formidable. The league, which also dropped plans in 2007 to play a preseason game there, has not given up. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is viewed as a big proponent of playing a game in China.
“We could get a game done in China in the next couple of years,” Waller said. “It has to be part of a broader strategy. … We know we can play a game and we know there are stadiums there that can host it. We want to make sure if we do it we have a business plan that takes advantage.”
Currently, the business focus is streaming and televising games in China, and working with digital companies to market the league.
Outside of China, the NFL last year hired two companies, Perform and a venture of WPP and Bruin Sports Capital, to market the league’s game streaming service, Game Pass. Waller conceded that in year one of those partnerships, sales fell short of goals, but he pronounced confidence in that arrangement.
The core of the NFL’s international approach continues to surround staging regular-season games in London and Mexico. The league will stage three regular-season games in London next season and one in Mexico. Waller envisions the day, in a time period 20 to 50 years from now, when the NFL will have teams in London, Mexico and Canada.
“It will be a global thing,” he predicted. “The best thing is for fans to have their own team.”
