The German Football League (DFL) and Spain’s LaLiga are both forging closer ties with the National Football League as part of their plans to grow fanbases in the United States.
The NFL has staged regular-season games in Germany since 2022 and will debut in Spain later this year, and both leagues are looking to take advantage of the NFL’s international growth plans to themselves tap new audiences in the US.
Borussia Dortmund’s strategic partnership with the Pittsburgh Steelers, announced yesterday (Thursday), is focused on joint team activities, content and fan engagement initiatives, and is part of that wider framework of closer collaboration between the DFL and NFL.
Recently, the NFL’s Chicago Bears and LaLiga club Valencia undertook an international activation collaboration.
From the NFL’s point of view, the Steelers holds marketing rights in Germany and the Bears in Spain as part of the league’s Global Markets Program (GMP), which aims to build brand awareness of the league outside of the US.
The DFL last September signed a 17-year contract with Relevent Sports Group to grow the Bundesliga brand throughout the Americas. It covers the sale of media and sponsorship rights, as well as extensive local content creation and fan engagement initiatives. LaLiga, meanwhile, has a 15-year joint venture with Relevent covering North America, which was signed in 2018.
Both leagues are shown in the US on ESPN, which also holds NFL rights, which Robin Austermann, head of Europe and Latin America for Bundesliga International, flagged as key to promoting the European leagues’ matches across its programming.
Speaking on a panel at the Sportel America convention in Miami this week, moderated by SportBusiness, Austermann said: “We have a strategic partnership with the NFL. They have a clear strategy to grow in Germany, they already have regular-season matches in Germany. We obviously want to grow in the US, so it’s a win-win. It’s not a competition between the leagues… We share, in different ways, the same vision.
“The NFL has a very short season but even though it starts in September, we still have bi-weekly calls with the NFL to plan what is going to happen for next season. Is it sending fans over to watch a Bundesliga game and then go to an NFL game? What do we do about content creators? It’s not just about the specific game taking place in Germany, but a whole season-long strategy.”
LaLiga has not yet felt the same benefits of regular American football games on Spanish soil – Madrid will get its first taste later this year – but the league has been working with the NFL to create content with relevant cultural touchpoints.
Nicolas Garcia Hemme, vice-president of strategy and business development at LaLiga North America, explained: “While our strategy is not as developed as the Bundesliga because the NFL has been going to Germany for a longer period of time, we have been sending NFL players to Spain and, through the lenses of an American, they explain the cultural experience of a LaLiga game is. But not only a LaLiga game. We had a player from the New Orleans Saints learning how to dance flamenco, and then tasting tapas.
“When you are trying to target a market, these kinds of tactics are very important because as an NFL fan you see someone you care about having fun, enjoying and discovering what LaLiga can offer. These kind of collaborations are part of our strategy.”
To officially inaugurate the Dortmund-Steelers partnership, a Steelers delegation recently visited the city to experience first-hand a home match at Signal Iduna Park. Back in December, a Dortmund delegation went to Pittsburgh for a Steelers home game at Acrisure Stadium. The visit included jersey swaps and content collaborations.
The Steelers added Germany to its GMP remit in April 2024, shortly after Dortmund opened its first US office, in New York.
Dan Rooney, Steelers’ director of business development and strategy, said: “The partnership with Borussia Dortmund, the first-of-its-kind for the Steelers organisation, builds off the deep connections both of our teams have with the communities we represent, as well as our shared values, rooted in our industrial pasts, of hard work, determination and a winning spirit. We look forward to what’s next as we support each other’s success in reaching fans in new markets and raising the profiles of the cities we call home.”
Marc Lingenhoff, managing director for BVB Americas, the club’s US business, added: “When exploring various expansion opportunities for BVB in the United States, we saw the Steelers as the ideal partner with tremendous success on the field, as well as a legacy of excellence off the field… We are proud and excited to bring this synergistic partnership to life on the global stage, with the fan at the centre of everything we do.”