Taking The NFL To The World

While football (or soccer to the natives) is the sport dominating America this summer, the National Football League (NFL) is only briefly sitting back in the shadows in its homeland. 

The season, despite being only 18-weeks long, is constantly gaining traction internationally; Super Bowl 2026 had an estimated 125.6 million viewers worldwide and growing.

On top of all that, Flag football, which, alongside Dentsu Creative, sees the brand aiming to inspire the next wave of talent and celebrate the younger athletes shaping the future of the sport.

But as a sport firmly rooted in America’s culture, how does it expand and gain a fanbase in nations less associated? A task for Tim Ellis, EVP chief marketing officer at the NFL. 

“Going global in the NFL is an incredible challenge,” he begins, speaking at Dentsu Creative’s What’s Next Live. “We found it to be very important to really understand who we are inside the US, and really listen and identify the opportunities that we have to position the NFL outside of our own borders.”

Working with Dentsu Creative, Ellis is looking for ways to bring the league across all parts of the world – from the UK to Australia to France – and is doing so at a growing rate. 

Global story vs local truths

2026 is the year of international fixtures for the NFL, which sees it expanding to nine games scheduled outside of the US: three in London, one in Paris, one in Madrid, one in Melbourne, one in Rio de Janeiro, one in Munich, and one in Mexico City. 

'American Football' is becoming a sport for the world.

“When we started doing this positioning strategy for the NFL again, we had to be realistic because people around the world may have heard of American football, may have seen it, but for the most part they don't understand it. It looks chaotic; these big guys are hitting each other, and they stop, and they start, they stop again. Then you go to a commercial.” 

The challenge with reaching international audiences, he adds, is not only getting enough fans to fill 75,000-seater stadiums, but to achieve fan development – to start getting people to take the time and effort to actually become fans and begin to connect with the sport’s communities.

“In America, the Pittsburgh Steelers have this towel they bring to games and wave around when something good happens – ‘the Terrible Towel’. When babies are born in Pittsburgh, they're wrapped in the Terrible Towel on the maternity ward, and it’s a part of the culture.”

Bringing such culture to the likes of London and Melbourne, he believes, will be a lot harder. 

“The NFL is a uniter, but that's a US positioning. There's no way we can make that argument any place outside the US. When I was with all the 32 team owners, I explained to them: 'What is the level of awareness?', 'What do sports fans want?', 'What do Gen Z fans want?', 'And how does the NFL position itself and deliver on that.'”

Working with Dentsu Creative, despite it only being a short period of time, has a pipeline for creating some “potentially powerful” work; for its UK CEO Jessica Tamsedge, taking the NFL into this international market journey requires elements of a “leap of faith”. 

She explains: “Some of the playbook we’re talking about is not traditional advertising – it’s education, it’s tools, it’s participation, it’s joy through entertainment. Trying to paint that picture as quantifiable is impossible across the number of markets at play, so there’s a need to inspire them to want to come on the journey of this huge thing.”

Ellis notes that, having met with all 32 team owners and the NFL’s Commissioner, Rodger Goodell, the future is exciting. 

“Everyone was so excited to see where we were going with the ideas and the strategy. People were literally jumping out of their seats.

“The work Dentsu have done, the people they’ve put on our team, and the level of collaboration and partnership has been incredible.”

Neck-on-the-line marketing

Despite being at the NFL for nearly eight years, Ellis’ career is an illustrious one that has seen him work both agency and brand side for the likes of Volvo and Activision, with many a Cannes Lion prize to his name – including Titaniums with BMW and Volvo. 

“This is a career that's been littered with global impact and work that’s incredibly effective,” praises Tamsedge. “Tim’s also been recently inducted into America's Advertising Hall of Fame, which is testament to much of the creative bravery that’s punctuated his career.”

Some of his best work, according to Ellis, has brought out-of-the-box methodologies and disruption to the table; bringing a new edge to the NFL isn’t his first rodeo. 

Having began his global marketing career in Sweden, he outlines he wanted to create “breakthrough creative work” across multiple markets. 

“It's one thing to do that in your own home country, it's another to not only resonate or be successful in your marketing efforts, but to truly do breakthrough world-class creative – that was not something that was that was being done.”

He continues: “One of the first campaigns I’d ever did was for Volvo in 2003 and we used Spike Jonze – and he only does two or three things a year and doesn’t agree unless it's going to be something that's really breakthrough and talked about.

“We created this mockumentary about this little town in Sweden that 45 people in the town had bought this car, which didn't sound like a lot, but there's only like 400 or 500 people in the village. 

“Everyone thought it was a real documentary, we had the whole town as a part of the film, and we literally created a phenomenon where the largest chat room in Europe was talking about whether the mystery was real or not real, is it marketing or was it actually real?”

The campaign gained global attention and created mass hysteria in the early age of internet chat forums; according to Ellis, the bold work was the most successful campaign Volvo has ever run, and created seven times the traffic into showrooms. 

Bringing bold creative to the NFL is something Ellis notes has been challenging across the turbulent periods the NFL has experienced, such as the protest movement by Colin Kaepernick and the real divide amongst America around conversations of race.  

“There was a real opportunity for me to come in and actually work to heal some of of that tension that was there between the players in the league and our fan base, and we did a lot of things to show a level of contrition and understanding that mistakes have been made, and that we needed to work to sort of earn back the trust.”

Tapping into American culture – be it fashion, gaming, music – has the potential to be “very powerful” if expressed in the right way, he says. However, sometimes you have to be willing to make people uncomfortable in order to grow. 

“Inclusivity and diversity are not the most popular words these days in the United States, and so it's been very important for us – and me as the brand leader – is to continue to be inclusive.” 

He uses an ad produced a few years as an example, off the back of the first active NFL player coming out as gay. 

“We did an ad because we wanted to really get behind this player and the movement and connect with that community. The first line of the ad was ‘Football is gay’. It went on to say, ‘Football is trans’, ‘Football is lesbian’, but then ‘Football is for everyone’. 

“A lot of people were not comfortable with that ad, but it was one of the most important moments of the eight years that I've been with the brand because it signaled to people that we stood for something. The people who didn't like it still continue to watch the game and engage with us, but the people of the community who saw us put that out there, were so taken back and surprised that we would do that.”

Expanding brand DNA consistently

The NFL, founded in 1920, is a sport rooted in American culture and history. Over time its expansion has set the bar for other brands to follow; “Over the past five or six years, the NFL standing its ground and remaining consistent has set it apart from not just the sporting competition, but brands globally,” believes Tamsedge.

And Ellis describes much of the brand DNA’s expansion coming from research into what needs changing and why – while staying consistent. 

“We went to 10 markets, we talked to literally 1000s of people, we did qualitative and quantitative data to understand it,” he says. “What's come out of that is potentially very powerful, and what I loved about it, when I shared all this with the owners and with our internal NFL audience is the feeling of ‘That's us’.”

Ellis, who has the "privilege" of being on Roger Goodell’s board and is in frequent communication with him about the brand, says Goodell has always been consistent about having values that matter to its audience – particularly as its audience is bigger than a homogenous group. 

“Roger and I talk every day about these things,” he adds. “Not being reactive all the time is very important because it's when you change and begin to become reactive, that's when I think you're most vulnerable as a brand.”

Dentsu and the NFL had some “difficult conversations” between them too, admits Tamsedge, as they tow the line of what the future looks like for the brand. 

“You have been really scientific about what is applied to the business,” she outlines. “This is a new product launch job. What is this product on a global stage? Because our competitor set isn't the same, where it sits time of day is different across markets, you're up against other entertainment, but you're up against experiences.” 

Understanding which parts of American culture the world can relate to – and that the brand can expand upon, is going to be key, according to Ellis. 

“What Americans may see as American swagger, people outside the country may see them as  arrogant bastards,” he jokes. “If you don't express it the right way, it's really off-putting and potentially alienating. Understanding what aspects of American culture are going to help connect and really lean in to this is really important.”