The NFL appears to be ramping up efforts to spread its international wings. London has become the league’s unofficial 32nd city, Mexico will host another regular-season game in 2017 and there’s been talk of games in Germany, Brazil, even China.
Now, Detroit Lions defensive end Ezekiel Ansah, who hails from Ghana, is throwing Africa out there as a potential destination for NFL football.
“I would love to see a game in Africa,” Ansah said, according to the Lions’ website (via CBSSportscom). “That would be good, and I think there’s a lot of potential back in Africa. I know that one day the NFL will have a game out there just like we do in London.”
That day may not come in our lifetime, but it certainly couldn’t hurt for the NFL to start selling the game to an entirely new, burgeoning audience. Africa possesses four of the eight fastest-growing countries in the world in terms of GDP, and many of the world’s fastest-growing nations in terms of population. As the world shrinks into more of a global village, people in Africa will gain more and more access to American culture, and NFL football is embedded in that culture.
It’s only a matter of time before Africa begins to sink its continental teeth into an American sport. The NBA has already taken a wide variety of steps in order to establish a footprint there, even playing a special exhibition game in Johannesburg, South Africa last summer. So don’t be surprised if the NFL follows suit.
The league would be crazy not to. Because football is an awesome game. How else do you explain how it has taken over the American sports spectrum? It’s rather amazing that the rest of the world hasn’t caught on, but the potential is there. The NFL must realize that.
