Primetime in the Morning
Professional Sports Should Expand Matches Outside the U.S.
In the United States, thousands of Americans sit in front of their TV every Sunday to watch football. Many Europeans watch football as well; however, the games for them are extremely late due to the different time zones. To make professional sports more inclusive for European fans, professional sports leagues should have more matches overseas.
Professional sports have had overseas matches for decades. Yet, most leagues like the Major League Baseball (MLB) have less than 10 games overseas even though each team plays 162 games. Overseas games not only increase the fan base of the professional sports leagues every year, but also helps these professional teams sell more merchandise. The fan bases are a big part of why professional sports teams started playing overseas. In the National Football League (NFL), the Jacksonville Jaguars have such a large European fan base that this season the Jaguars played two games in England.
The fans are not the only ones that benefit from matches played outside the U.S. The leagues also gain a tremendous amount of revenue from these matches. A league like the NFL has benefitted from this tremendously when they held their games in Munich, Germany. The NFL was able to sell millions of dollars in jerseys, tickets and more, which generated $30 million in direct spending from Germans. But, they were not the only benefactors; Munich made 70 million euros overall from the NFL game that was held.
The overseas success is not limited to the NFL and MLB. The National Basketball Association (NBA) has also had success with overseas games, yet, they are the league that plays overseas the least. Because of the media deals that the NBA has, it limits overseas fans to be able to watch games on television because of the NBA’s TV rights. If the NBA were able to create a new deal, and play more matches overseas, then the NBA would have an immense amount of fan growth.
Even though overseas games have had much success, some say that the players and teams that travel this far will not play their best. Though this may be true, some teams have had great success playing overseas. The New York Giants of the NFL are actually 3-1 when playing matches overseas. Some players have also had monumental feats, like the Jaguars Jamal Agnew who had a kick return touchdown in England.
Overall, when professional sports teams have matches overseas there are many more positives than negatives, which is why professional sports teams should not stop having competitions overseas.
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