Latino audiences key to NFL growth in U.S. and abroad | Wilnesh News

The National Football League continues its efforts to attract new audiences after a famous musician appeared at a Kansas City Chiefs game earlier this month.

But this time it wasn’t Swift rooting for Travis Kelce – as the pop star did at a game in Kansas City, leading to a ratings boost.

This is Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee, known for hits like “Gasolina” and “Rompe.” He attended the Monday Night Football game at Arrowhead Stadium and spent time with Chiefs running back Isaiah Pacheco. Pacheco, who is of Puerto Rican descent, had earlier let Daddy Yankee try on his two super bowl rings.

This moment is part of the NFL’s “Por La Cultura” campaign ActivityThe event, now in its fourth year, is a key element in the league’s efforts to expand its Latino and Spanish-speaking audiences.

Known for its explosive ratings, the NFL is one of the most dominant sports in terms of traditional television and streaming ratings. A Nielsen report earlier this week showed that football drove ratings in September.

However, the league remains eager to grow further globally and within the United States.

“I think when you have a successful product, your success is tied to your success, right? I mean, the growth that (the NFL) can actually achieve in the general (English-speaking) population of the United States is very Small,” said Olek Loewenstein, president of global sports at TelevisaUnivision.

He noted that the Hispanic population is “one of the largest, if not the largest demographic group in the United States, and it’s growing and younger.”

Marissa Solis, the NFL’s senior vice president of global brand and consumer marketing, said she joined the league three years ago to “power the growth of our audience.” For the NFL, she said, that means three groups: viewers 35 and under, who Solis noted are mostly Latino; women; and Latinos.

“Mathematically, it’s impossible for the league to grow without Latinos,” Solis said. “This audience is critical to our growth. It’s also critical to global growth because there are so many cross-border connections. and pride, and the fanbase spans borders.”

Lowenstein said that when it comes to sports in the United States, football is the most popular among Hispanic viewers, followed by baseball and boxing. The NFL is still trying to build its brand in a global market dominated by football and other sports.

“I do think the NFL is one of the sports that has grown and exploded most among Latinos,” Lowenstein said.

Early in the season, the NFL expanded its reach to non-Hispanic Latino audiences, hosting games in Brazil for the first time and taking more games to international locations. this game is Exclusively broadcast on ComcastPeacock, is the second most-watched live event on the streaming platform, behind only the NFL playoffs earlier this year.

Paramount WorldwideCBS aired this year’s Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, but because the network did not have a Spanish counterpart, it licensed those U.S. and Mexican rights to TelevisaUnivision.

Super Bowl breaks records on TelevisaUnivision’s over-the-air network explain, It averaged 2.3 million viewers across all platforms, the largest audience for Spanish-language coverage of the Super Bowl.

Still, that’s a minuscule contribution to the 2024 Super Bowl’s total viewers of 123.4 million.

“Seventy percent of the people who watched the Super Bowl didn’t watch any other playoff game that year,” TelevisaUnivision’s Lowenstein said.

The first Spanish-language Super Bowl broadcast aired on cable network Fox Deportes in 2015. In 2022, NBCUniversal’s Telemundo will televise the Super Bowl on a Spanish-language radio network for the first time.

While broadcasting the Super Bowl in Spanish is not part of the NFL’s media rights agreement, it has become an important priority as the NFL looks to expand availability, according to the league.

Earlier this week, Fox Deportes and Telemundo announced that the two networks would broadcast super bowl February. The two networks will offer “the most widely available Spanish-language version” of the Super Bowl in U.S. history, and both networks will produce the broadcasts separately.

Joaquin Duro, executive vice president of sports at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises, said Telemundo’s NFL viewership has grown “significantly” since the 2022 Super Bowl broadcast.

Telemundo broadcasts every “Sunday Night Football” game in Spanish on both TV and Peacock. He noted that while core audiences still watch on traditional TV, streaming is becoming increasingly important. “This helps us attract a younger, more tech-savvy audience,” Duro said.

Like the NFL, Telemundo Deportes highlights the stories of Hispanic players. Duro added that it has also expanded its coverage of NFL events with live coverage during games and more interviews.

“I love the changes, evolution and expansion of the NFL,” said Rolando Cantú, a former NFL player and analyst for “TNF en Espanol” and Telemundo Deportes’ broadcast of “Sunday Night Football.”

Revealed: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.