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SBJ Football: NFL Hiring For New Top Job In Europe


It’s a GREAT day to remind everybody this newsletter is called SBJ Football, not SBJ NFL. The relaunch of the XFL has the world’s attention -- for now at least -- and I’ll be at MetLife Stadium on Sunday to watch the Tampa Bay-N.Y. opener with great interest. If you’re tuning in from home, or attending live in Dallas, Houston, D.C. or New York, drop me a line at bfischer@sportsbusinessjournal.com. I’d love to hear your first impressions.

 

 

NFL HEADING FOR THE OLD COUNTRY

  • The NFL is searching for a managing director in Europe, a newly created position that will spearhead the league’s quest for growth in Germany and the rest of continental Europe. U.K. Managing Director Alistair Kirkwood has led NFL’s efforts in Great Britain since 2006, but Germany is on the cusp of an American football breakout, said Exec VP and Chief Strategy & Growth Officer Christopher Halpin. The high-level job -- which will oversee both the U.K. and Europe -- is “really a reflection of momentum of scale and opportunity,” Halpin said. The job was first posted publicly on Thursday, and Nolan Partners is leading the search.

  • Super Bowl LIV viewership in Germany grew nearly 30% year-over-year to 1.8 million viewers, Halpin said. (Keep in mind the game ended after 4am there.) For the whole season, viewership averaged 1.3 million per game, up 11%, and consumer surveys report 20% annual growth among Germans who call themselves big NFL fans. “All of it is up and to the right,” Halpin said.

  • Part of the job will be producing an NFL regular-season game in Germany. Halpin cautions this is still a couple of years away -- at least -- but this new Europe-based exec will have the full support of Park Avenue HQ and the NFL Int'l Committee to make it happen. It’s not just about a one-off game though; the new exec will be expected to create day-to-day fans alongside German media partner ProSieben, and develop the NFL brand throughout Europe. This is the second managing director role Halpin has posted over the last six months, following Sameer Pabari (international media), who was hired in September.

 

 


PRIORITY FOR XFL LAUNCH? GET THE PRODUCT RIGHT

  • The XFL will have four national TV windows for each of the next 10 weekends. It’s got Gatorade, Anheuser-Busch InBev and DraftKings on board as sponsors. That’s a great start, but Saturday is crunch time for the most important factor: Will the product be any good? The XFL knows this too. “Sports marketing fundamentally begins on the field of play,” XFL President Jeffrey Pollack told me last week. A Morning Consult poll found that 49% of all American sports fans are open to a new football league -- and 86% of them rated the quality of play as an important factor.

  • Viewers may be willing to give it a shot, but they’ll make snap judgments about the entertainment value. Certain basic non-negotiables emerged as I talked about this with my friends this week: QB accuracy. Offensive lines good enough to at least allow for a deep pass play to develop. A healthy amount of scoring. “You want to have good quality, and there’s got to be exciting games and the officiating has to be reliable,” said Phil Pacsi, the retired longtime sports marketing lead for NFL sponsor Bridgestone. Also to watch: Has the XFL landed on the right side of the line dividing helpful rules innovation and gimmickry?

  • The onus is on the broadcasters, Pacsi said. The NFL has developed sophisticated deals with Amazon Web Services and other providers to bring advanced stats to the game, and the networks spare no expense in value-adds for lucrative NFL football shows. Will ABC, ESPN and Fox deliver something shiny to fans this weekend? “The broadcasters need to step up and bring their A game to draw people in,” Pacsi said. Fans will come away with a hard-to-describe feeling that will determine their next step. “They’re going to need to get [fans] to say, ‘Hey, you know, I got a lot out of that broadcast. It made me want to come back.'”

  • XFL leaders will do the rounds this week to watch in person. Commissioner Oliver Luck and Pollack will both be in D.C. for the Dragons-Defenders opener at Audi Field. On Sunday, Luck will fly to Arlington, Texas, for BattleHawks-Renegades, while Pollack will be at MetLife Stadium for Vipers-Guardians.

 


CAUTIOUS OPTIMISM FROM XFL TV TALENT

  • For the XFL to be successful, the league will need to differentiate itself from the NFL product. On-air talent will play a significant role in forming fan perceptions. The efforts on TV could help the league gain traction right out of the gate. Here’s how a few personalities are handling the spring league assignment.

  • ESPN’s Dianna Russini, who’ll be a sideline reporter from Audi Field tomorrow, stressed to SBJ's Thomas Leary the importance of a less buttoned-down broadcast: “The NFL is very strict and I don’t get a lot of access. I’m like a beaten-down dog sometimes. [For the XFL] I can go ask the quarterback what he was doing there. And fans are going to love when they hear the offensive coordinator calling plays on the opening drive.” What will Russini consider a successful first season? “Most people are going to watch Week 1. I want to see them committed to Championship Weekend. Care about it, gamble on it, tweet about it. Demand more coverage.”

  • Brady Quinn told CBS Sports’ Will Brinson he expects the XFL to “last for at least two years,” as the league is “well-funded.” Quinn, who will call five games this season for Fox, also had fun with comparisons to the most recent spring football effort. “Fortunately, I still get paid regardless, whether it works or not. It’s not like the money that I’m being paid is specifically tied to being paid through the AAF. So, I’ve got that on my side.” 

  • ESPN field analyst Pat McAfee said this is a league that is “going to have to battle against the reputation of the original XFL.” But he cautioned this version will be “much different.” McAfee said of the 2001 version of the XFL, “It was just supposed to be live events at stadiums. It was supposed to be this gladiator-type football with cheerleaders and music. Then it got forced onto network television. … Not everybody could handle the character.”

 


SPEED READS

  • David Tepper may have stepped on some local toes in his effort to bring a soccer team to Bank of America Stadium. The Charlotte Observer’s Alaina Getzenberg writes under the headline: “Panthers PSL Owners Feeling Insulted By Losing Their Seats As Stadium Makes Way For MLS." Tepper’s desire to purchase an MLS team "came with the requirement" that BofA Stadium be altered to accommodate soccer. But the issue is not necessarily that 380 PSL owners have to "leave the seats they’ve been in for years” -- it’s the "manner in which the news was presented to them."

  • Sources told me that the broadcasters will be "content" averaging 1.5 million viewers for XFL games across ABC and Fox and 800,000 viewers for games across ESPN and FS1 this season. For a spring football comparison last year, CBS averaged 3.3 million viewers for the first telecast of the Alliance of American Football on a Saturday night, which featured two games as part of a regionalized window. For the shortened AAF season, CBS, TNT and NFL Network averaged 556,000 viewers for games across the three networks.

  • The NFL is looking to hire its first-ever VP/Sports Betting. The candidate will work with the media department on the "distribution of content for gaming purposes and the integration of gaming products into the NFL's platforms." The hire would also report to Halpin.

  • Last week we touched on the importance of the NFL and Verizon increasing connectivity speed and bandwidth at venues. Today, via Mobile Sports Report's Paul Kapustka, came news that Super Bowl LIV set a new WiFi record with 26.42 terabytes of data used in Hard Rock Stadium. That's up from 24 terabytes last year at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
  • Be sure to read Monday’s magazine for a full Super Bowl LIV recap from the SBJ crew that was in South Florida for the week. We’ll have lots of fresh business news, including some nuggets on the upcoming TV rights negotiations and how it might affect schedules. Also: More rideshare drama after the Big Game.
 

 

 

 

 

Enjoying this newsletter? We've got more! Check out SBJ College with Michael Smith on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and SBJ Media with John Ourand on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Something on the football beat catch your eye? Tell us about it. Reach out to either me (bfischer@sportsbusinessjournal.com) or Austin Karp (akarp@sportsbusinessjournal.com) and we'll share the best of it. Also contributing to this newsletter is Thomas Leary (tleary@sportsbusinessdaily.com).