International viewership increases when the NFL plays games abroad.

By John McDermott

The NFL’s decades-long effort to grow its international audience by playing games abroad is paying off.

More than 10 percent of the total viewing hours for the first three weeks of this NFL season came from international audiences, up from 8 percent the previous two seasons.

The increase suggests that the NFL’s international games are more than just novelty acts — they are helping turn international audiences into dedicated NFL fans.

International Games Have Larger International Audiences

The NFL’s foray into foreign markets began in the mid-2000s, when the league launched its International Series of games. Having more or less achieved saturation in the U.S. market, the NFL felt one of the best ways to grow the league was to cultivate fans abroad. 

The best way to get foreign audiences into American football was to bring the game to them, the NFL reasoned. The NFL has staged games over the past 20 years in major cities across Europe — such as London, Paris, Berlin, Dublin and Madrid — and Central and South America, including Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro. This year, the NFL went down under for the first time and played an opening week game in Melbourne, Australia.

That strategy has succeeded in attracting international audiences, Samba data found.

When the NFL plays a game in an international market, international viewership accounts for 15.3 percent of the overall hours viewed, nearly double the 8 percent international share for games played domestically, according to a new analysis by Samba.

(Important caveat: This increase in international share is partially due to time zones. The NFL plays games in the host country's primetime slot, which is early morning for some U.S. audiences.)

Samba analyzed the domestic and international audiences for all of the NFL games played in the U.S. and abroad in the 2024 and 2025 regular seasons, and in the first three weeks of the current season.

The Biggest Lift is in the Host Market

The increase in international viewership is especially large in the market where the game is played, according to the Samba report.

The NFL’s experiment in Australia was an enormous success, for example. The week one matchup between the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams reached nearly 1.2 million households in Australia, 18 times the typical Australian audience for other international games. The number of hours watched was higher by a factor of 44.

Audience gains for games in England and Germany were more modest, but this doesn’t mean those games weren’t successful. Rather, it’s likely an indication that the NFL has successfully established steady fanbases in these markets.

The NFL has been playing in England for decades. The first NFL game in England was a 1983 preseason exhibition in London, and the city has hosted multiple NFL games the past several seasons. The NFL played its first regular season game in Germany in 2022, a game best remembered by 70,000 Germans singing John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads" in unison. Before the NFL regularly played games in European cities, it had NFL Europe, a developmental league with teams across the continent, including several in Germany. 

Many people in these countries know ball and watch games regularly, regardless of whether the games are being played in their own backyards.

For years, it’s been rumored the NFL will establish a new team somewhere in Europe, likely London, and perhaps expand to have an entire European division within the league. If the NFL does expand to Europe, there will be a well-established fanbase waiting for them.