The NFL is now heading to Africa to find 'new talent'... - Revolver News
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The NFL isn’t just playing football anymore. It seems like it’s turning into FIFA and building a global machine.
For as long as any of us can remember, NFL football has been one of the most American things ever. Even when the NFL took a hard left turn and got woke, it was still an all-American sport for the most part. Friday night lights, college rivalries, Thanksgiving games, Super Bowl parties, tailgates, marching bands, small towns, big cities, and a sport that grew straight out of American culture. It’s become our national past time.
But times, they are changing…
Now the league is diving into deep overseas waters, and a lot of fans are starting to wonder where this is all heading.
The NFL has already expanded its international footprint with games in Europe and South America. Now it’s working its way into Africa through flag football competitions, Olympic ambitions, and talent-spotting events designed to find the next big star to play in the NFL from outside the United States.
If you ask questions, the league will just tell you this is growth. NFL bigwigs will say they’re bringing opportunity to poor African villages and “expanding the global game” because that’s how these people talk circles around their fans.
But a lot of regular Americans see something else happening.
They see another all-American institution being poured into the globalist blender, where everything that’s local and distinctly American gets whipped into some borderless international smoothie.
We’ve watched this happen in politics, entertainment, corporations, universities, and now sports. The message is always the same: national identity is old-fashioned, racist, borders are outdated, tradition is bigoted, and everybody should just merge into one big humanoid persona.
But that’s not how real people think.
Americans don’t hate talented athletes. They love great players and underdog stories, and they love watching someone earn their spot. But they’re also allowed to ask why the NFL is so eager to hunt for talent overseas when America is full of young men who grew up playing this game, dreaming of this league, and trying to make it from their own hometown fields.
That’s the problem here. They see this as yet another piece of American culture being repackaged and globalized. And fans have every reason to pay attention.
The NFL was in Kenya this weekend for its latest competition. American sports leagues have been aggressively looking for new markets, new fans, and new pipelines all over Africa.
The NBA has also made major moves with its Basketball Africa League. Now the NFL is following suit.
Nairobi (AFP) – American Football’s NFL came to Kenya this weekend for its latest competition on the African continent as it seeks to win converts to the sport.
US sports have increasingly sought to break into the African market, with the NBA launching a high-profile Basketball Africa League in 2019, based in Rwanda.
Oh, that little phrase, “win converts,” says a lot, right?
This isn’t just a friendly exhibition or a feel-good sports clinic. It’s a campaign. The NFL is looking hard at Africa as a market to enter, a fan base to develop, and a future talent pool to tap into.
Also, the NFL isn’t just promoting football in Africa. It’s promoting a version of the game that’s about to become much bigger on the world stage…
The Kenya games center around non-contact flag football. This will be a legit sport in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Once flag football becomes an Olympic sport, the NFL will have a perfect way to push football into countries where traditional American football doesn’t have any roots.
RFI:
Recent days saw a third annual flag football competition staged by the National Football League (NFL) in Africa — a non-contact version of the sport that has grown in popularity around the world and will make its Olympics debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
The three-day competition saw Egypt emerge as winners of the men’s contest against teams from Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria and South Africa, while the women’s contest was won by Nigeria.
he event also included a talent-spotting session with NFL scouts, looking for the next star to join the league.
The scouts are already there, looking for the next big NFL star via a “flag football” competition. And fans are now starting to think this whole thing looks like the early stages of NFL globalization.
The NFL wants more participation and growth.
But if football is becoming some global development project, what happens to the American character of the sport back home?
RFI:
“Flag football is very accessible, everybody can play it,” said Osi Umenyiora, who won two Super Bowls with the New York Giants, and now heads NFL Africa.
“As the NFL looks to expand and keep on growing especially across the continent of Africa… participation is a huge part of it,” he said.
“We all know what sport can do for people, it can allow them to escape whatever situation they’re in, and give them hope, and that’s what we’re trying to do here,” he added.
We get it: great athletes are great athletes, and occasionally, they can become part of the US sports industry. But when the NFL starts openly looking to Africa for future stars, while Americans are watching their institutions become less recognizable every day, people are going to connect the dots.
Of course sports can change lives, and nobody is attacking kids in Africa for wanting a shot at something better. That’s not the issue here.
The issue is where this goes next. It’s fine if the NFL wants to start flag football leagues in Africa and beyond? Sure. But is that where it stops? Or are we heading toward a future where some American kid who grew up dreaming of making the NFL gets pushed aside because the league has found its next global “superstar” from Africa?
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That’s what a lot of fans are wondering. Because with these big corporate pushes, where things start, all wrapped up in warm and fuzzy buzzwords and good intentions, is never where they end up.
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