(C) ShareAmerica
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Love for the Super Bowl goes international [1]
['Fred Bowen']
Date: 2025-02-05 19:08:40+00:00
The Super Bowl is more than the championship of America’s most-watched sport. In 60 years this National Football League (NFL) finale, with its flashy halftime show and popular advertisements, has become a U.S. cultural institution that attracts millions of television viewers worldwide.
Last year, 62 million viewers from around the world joined the 123 million Americans who watched the televised game. This year’s Super Bowl in New Orleans on February 9 — which will pit reigning champion Kansas City Chiefs against the Philadelphia Eagles — could surpass those numbers.
President Trump, who announced on February 4 that he plans to attend the game, will be the first sitting president to do so. And though he has declined to pick a winner, he appeared to tip his hat to the Chiefs’ three-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Patrick Mahomes. “I don’t want to say, but there’s a certain quarterback that seems to be a pretty good winner,” Trump said.
The battle will be a rematch for the two teams that played in the Super Bowl two years ago. In fact, the Chiefs, led by superstar Mahomes, are vying for an unprecedented third consecutive Super Bowl win. (The team beat the Eagles that time and went on the next year to win against the San Francisco 49ers in the 2024 Super Bowl.)
This Sunday, the game will be broadcast in 180 countries by sportscasters speaking some 20 languages. A ready audience awaits in Canada and the United Kingdom, where 69% and 49% of people, respectively, say they watch the Super Bowl at least occasionally, according to a recent survey by Kantar, a data analytics firm.
American football’s global popularity follows the NFL’s efforts to attract international viewers and players to the sport. The league played its first regular season game abroad in 2005, when the Arizona Cardinals took on the San Francisco 49ers in Mexico City.
Since then, the NFL has played 50 regular season games in other countries, including Canada, England and Germany. The Eagles opened their 2024 regular season by playing a game in Brazil. In October 2024, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ defeated the New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium in London in front of 86,000 European fans. And the Miami Dolphins will play the league’s first game in Spain during the upcoming 2025–2026 season.
Just watch the entire stadium at Allianz Arena singing to John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” (very popular with the Oktoberfest crowd, I have learned) in the final two minutes pic.twitter.com/PwMUG2Z08n — JennaLaineESPN (@JennaLaineESPN) November 13, 2022
The tens of thousands of fans who attend NFL games abroad appreciate American culture that extends beyond football. For instance, in Munich, thousands have sung along to John Denver’s classic song, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
This year’s Super Bowl halftime show starring Kendrick Lamar will highlight American music. Lamar is one of the most decorated artists in hip-hop and rap music, both genres that began in U.S. cities in the 1970s. The winner of 22 Grammy awards, he has toured on six continents.
American football attracts some foreign-born players too, including two who will start in this year’s Super Bowl.
Jordan Mailata played professional rugby in Australia before joining the NFL in 2018 through its International Player Pathway program, which brings top athletes from around the world into the game. Mailata, a top offensive lineman in the NFL, had never even played American football before joining that program. Yet in this week’s big game, Mailata will protect Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts and work to clear a path for superstar running back Saquon Barkley.
On the opposing side, Chiefs defensive end George Karlaftis — born in Athens, Greece — will work to stop the Eagles’ vaunted rushing attack. Karlaftis played water polo and soccer in Greece, but took up football in eighth grade after moving to the U.S. state of Indiana.
Karlaftis hopes that by protecting three-time Super Bowl most valuable player Mahomes, he will improve the Kansas City team’s chances of winning its fourth Super Bowl championship in six years. Whichever way it goes, millions of fans around the world will be watching.
Fred Bowen is a freelance writer.
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