If you are someone with athletic skills, ambition in your heart and dollars in your eyes, American football could be for you - even if you did not grow up with it.
That was the message from Gerrit Meier, the man responsible for taking the National Football League (NFL) to the world.
Speaking at a conference in Melbourne, the Managing Director and Head of NFL International highlighted the example of Jordan Mailata, the 166-kilogram Australian who plays offensive tackle for Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles.
Sydney-born Mailata, 27, signed a three-year US$66 million (A$105 million) contract extension in April 2024, only six years after first playing American football, pitting himself at its highest level against Americans who had grown up with the game.
Meier noted that the first foreigners to play in the NFL were kickers from Europe and more recently punters from Australia, but Mailata found success at a different position, as part of the offensive line protecting the quarterback.
“The great thing about American football is it's one of the few sports (where) there's enough positions on the team that even if you've never actually played a competitive game of American football, if you come with the right ability, the right skills, you can become that player even a little bit later in your life,” he said at the annual SportNXT sports thought leadership summit which Azzet attended.
Expansion outside the US
Meier was speaking just over a month after the NFL announced it would stage a regular season game in Australia for the first time, with the Los Angeles Rams playing at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) in 2026.
Since 2005 when the NFL first played a regular season game outside the U.S. with one in London, it has played in Mexico (2016) and Germany (2022) with Canada, Spain and Brazil joining Australia as foreign hosts of America’s national game.
Meier said given its relatively short season (three-week pre-season, 18-week regular season and three to four weeks of play-offs) and the fact it is a "challenger brand" outside the U.S., the NFL wanted to “activate” across the year to ensure fans around the world found reasons to connect with the NFL.
It has created academies in Australia and the United Kingdom to teach young athletes to play tackle (contact) or flag (non-contact) football and even prepare them for a professional football career.
"We don't just want to come to town. We want to stay,” Meier said.
“As we think about coming in 2026, that is the beginning of something. That's not the end.”
