An NFL global strategist considering France as an export market might arrive at two opposite conclusions.
On the negative side of the ledger, the country never fielded a team in the NFL Europe era and its only homegrown, bona fide NFL star retired 40 years ago. On the positive side, France is the world’s seventh-largest economy, home to the global commercial and cultural hub of Paris and a government that believes in sports as a development tool.
The rosier perspective won out in NFL circles, with a robust push from the New Orleans Saints, and on Oct. 25 the NFL will make its Paris debut when the Saints host the Pittsburgh Steelers at Stade de France.
France is the ninth country outside the U.S. to host an NFL game, and while it might not be the top growth prospect overseas, it’s strong enough to justify the swing, said Brett Gosper, the NFL’s head of Europe and Asia-Pacific.
“The capability, the infrastructure and the organization to take on something as big as an NFL game is reassuring,” Gosper said.
There are 12 million self-proclaimed NFL fans in France, according to the league’s research, with a strong market for sports sponsorship and media rights. (For reference, the same research finds 11 million fans in Spain and 17 million in Germany.)
“On all those criteria, France fits pretty well into that group of, let’s say, 12 priority markets,” said Gosper, who spent time as CEO of World Rugby before coming to the NFL. “And it’s one of the big European markets. In many ways, you could have argued we might have gone to France before Madrid, but the actual stadium was under concession review and the Olympics were in the middle of that, so there was a little bit of a frozen opportunity for a couple years.”
Unlike other top-tier markets in the NFL’s increasingly aggressive global strategy, the 32 NFL clubs have been relatively disinterested in France — except for the Saints, who claimed France in the global market program in early 2023. The Saints remain the only team with commercial rights in France, and the club is a big believer in the opportunity, said Saints and Pelicans President Dennis Lauscha.
New Orleans’ Creole culture is heavily French, and both the city and team’s primary logo is the fleur-de-lis, which was used as a symbol by French royalty for hundreds of years.
“It’s amazing when you start diving down and exploring how many cultural connections we have, but it’s not just cultural connections, it’s business connections,” Lauscha said. “There are literally hundreds of companies that are in France that are doing business in the state of Louisiana, or our region. I’m talking huge companies.”
Brett Gosper, the NFL’s head of Europe and Asia-Pacific, sees France as one of the league’s priority international growth markets, citing its economic strength, sports infrastructure and an estimated 12 million NFL fans. NFL
In the days leading into the game, Saints owner Gayle Benson will host two private VIP receptions in Paris, including one on Oct. 22 at U.S. Ambassador Charles Kushner’s official residence. On Oct. 24, the team will stage a one-day, public-facing “Saints House” with Saints- and New Orleans-themed entertainment, activations and retail.
As the NFL embarks on a generation-long effort to build a fan base in France that can drive meaningful media rights revenue, it starts as a niche product in a culture dominated by soccer, rugby, handball and Olympic sports, experts said.
If any American league has traction with the French, it’s the NBA, which has played numerous games in Paris; boasts a generational French superstar in Victor Wembanyama and several other top-tier French players; and features a sport played casually and competitively throughout the country of 69 million. The comparison to the NBA both underscores the scale of the challenge for the NFL and the market’s apparent openness to American imports, said Vincent Zurita, director of digital in France for Sportfive, which works with the Saints in the market.
“Just looking at the figures, the fandom for the NBA is much, much, much higher than the NFL,” Zurita said. “Culturally speaking, it’s not as present as the NBA. So yes, in short, the challenge is definitely bigger, but there is at the same time an appeal for U.S. sports, American sports, such as the NFL, for instance.”
Until this year, regular-season NFL games were only distributed in France on pay TV, either beIN Sports or DAZN’s Game Pass product. But in July, the NFL struck a deal to get this year’s games on free-to-air channels owned by L’Equipe, and the Paris game will be broadcast on government-owned France Télévisions.
Zurita and Maxime Lebessou, deputy managing director of Sportfive France, said the Super Bowl — and its extraordinary scope, ambition and cultural relevance — is the typical French person’s reference point for the NFL and drives curiosity. Bringing some of that sizzle to Paris on Oct. 25 will be important, but not sufficient.
To that end, the Saints and the French Federation of American Football have staged flag football competitions, including one beneath the Eiffel Tower in September. Meanwhile, the Sportfive team said, the NFL and Saints should continue to emphasize cultural ties, ideally enlisting players, to expand a conversation with potential French fans beyond the sport itself.
Another key variable will be if France can qualify one or both of its teams for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic flag tournament, which would be a particularly prominent platform for American football in the Olympics-centric French sporting culture.
“There’s a natural hype around what’s coming from the U.S., especially when it’s the first time for an NFL game in Paris,” Zurita said. “But after that, the challenge is to maintain this attention in the long run.”