By Frank Pingue
TORONTO (Reuters) - Simply staging a game in a foreign country is not enough to generate loyal overseas fans, the National Football League (NFL) is discovering.
Though NFL is wildly popular in North America it is still considered a complex game with too many stoppages in play by people in other countries where the sporting landscape is already crowded.
"Just by putting a game on doesn't necessarily mean people are going to flock to our sport. We need to be very clever and understand how it appeals to them and how to connect with them in the first place," Chris Parsons, vice president of NFL International, told Reuters in a telephone interview.
"Every country has its favorite sports so we need to work very hard -- and we've done that a lot more over the last few years -- at finding connection points with those fans."
To help in its aim of increasing appreciation of American football beyond the United States the NFL formed an international division in 1996, naming Mexico, Canada, Japan, China and Britain as its five primary markets.
While the league does not give breakdowns of how much money goes to each market, it did say the lion's share was directed to Britain where games at London's Wembley Stadium in each of the past three years have drawn crowds in excess of 81,000.
Despite the success in London, the NFL is cautious about testing new markets. To date, Britain, Canada and Mexico are the only areas outside the U.S. to have held regular-season games.
LOGISTICAL CHALLENGES
Playing a game in Japan or China would be a long journey for the teams involved but the NFL still hopes to find an opportunity to take its game to a market that boasts a combined population of more than 1.4 billion.
"You can't really play regular-season games there without putting the teams under some logistical challenges but there may be ways around that," said Parsons.
"In time, and with fan bases continuing to grow in those countries, we will look at exhibition games and potentially, if there was a way to logistically do it, beyond that."
The league was given added incentive to hold a game in China when the Buffalo Bills drafted Ed Wang this year, making him the first player with direct Chinese ancestry to be drafted by an NFL team.
Wang speaks fluent Mandarin and news of his draft gave the NFL more coverage in Chinese newspapers than ever before.
Parsons said the NFL had been aware of Wang during the past year as he started to excel in college football and it appreciated the potential he had to help a league looking to increase its fan base.
He said recent meetings with possible commercial partners in China, where the NFL is still in its infancy, were given an added boost just at the mention of Wang's name.
"Once we sat down with them there was interest in getting involved with the NFL, but then when you start talking about Ed the interest level grows," said Parsons. "There's no doubt that it provides a certain catalyst to engagement with anyone that you deal with in that country."
TRANSFERABLE SKILLS
The number of foreign-born players on training-camp rosters jumped 35 percent to 70 in 2009 from 1999, which Parsons said was a reflection of the league's efforts to promote the game outside the U.S.
According to Parsons, part of the NFL's strategy to make its game more global is to look at developing players from other sports who have skills that can be carried over to American football.
"It's not that athletes aren't there around the world, it's that we need to find them, capture them and get them sort of into the right training capacity and there are programmes that we have in place to help support that," said Parsons.
Still, the NFL does not feel having a player from a certain country will guarantee success in building a fan base there.
"It helps a lot when we have it, it's a nice catalyst for growth," said Parsons. "But it's not critical for growth and when you look at when the sport has grown in each country it's not been a result of the country having a player in the league, it's more been a result of good connection points with fans."
The NFL says its biggest "absolute fan base" outside the U.S. is in Mexico, but there are no scheduled games there any time soon. Instead, the league is looking at playing more games in Britain.
The Denver Broncos and San Francisco 49ers will travel to London for a game in October but the league ruled against a second game there this year due in part to the uncertain economic climate.
Canada will also host NFL games as team owners approved an initiative by the Bills to play regular-season games in Toronto from 2008-12 and pre-season games in 2008, 2010 and 2012.
(Editing by Clare Fallon)
