New England Patriots Cling to German Popularity in Post-Brady Era
Sebastian Vollmer never played for the Kansas City Chiefs or Miami Dolphins. But that didn’t stop fans from wearing his jersey during the matchup in Frankfurt, Germany, last week. The fandom for the German-born former offensive tackle for the Patriots only fuels New England’s push to be the most popular NFL franchise in Deutschland.
The Patriots’ ongoing marketing and commercial initiatives in Germany, as part of the NFL’s Global Market Program, culminate this Sunday when the team plays the Indianapolis Colts at Deutsche Bank Park in Frankfurt. It’s the first time the Patriots will play in the EU’s most populous nation, a chance to energize and attract a new generation of fans.
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The Patriots enter the game at 2-7, their worst start to a season since 2000. Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is still trying to reinvigorate the offense since the departure of future Hall of Fame quarterback Tom Brady four seasons ago.
Brady, the now-retired legend who lifted the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a win over the Seattle Seahawks in Munich last season, took the top spot for bestselling jersey in Germany last year.
“People are drawn to the best players in any sport and any league,” Kraft Sports and Entertainment chief marketing officer Jen Ferron said in an interview. “That’s just natural. For us, we had, for a long period of time, the star player. But we’ve built a reputation of doing things a certain way on and off the field. … Even without a player like Tom, or a star player on the team right now, I believe we’ve built enough equity and trust in the fans who’ve admired and watched the Patriots for a long time that they will stick with us.”
Leveraging the popularity of current and former German-born players such as Vollmer and Markus Kuhn, the Patriots are up for the challenge. They are one of five NFL teams that have been awarded marketing rights in Germany, a vital market for the league. Last week during the beginning of back-to-back NFL games in Frankfurt, the Patriots started to activate in the market, which has continued this week.
While the Patriots players don’t arrive until Friday, dozens of team staffers, including cheerleaders, are already in Frankfurt. It’s not your typical away game. The team has also brought along members of their fan and brand experience division as well as dozens of alumni to help plant roots on foreign soil.
Game presentation, sponsorship sales staffers and event planners will also be traveling, pushing the overall number to roughly 100 employees in the market for the big weekend. Some team executives are spending this week meeting with German-based companies and finding ways to create move value for existing sponsors. Gillette’s multinational parent company Proctor and Gamble, for example, aims to leverage the Patriots’ push abroad as the major goods company make gains in its German business.
The Patriots, who also have extended rights into Switzerland and Austria, decided not to race to London, bucking the trend of the seven NFL teams in the United Kingdom—second to only to Mexico for most in one international market. Instead, they’re looking to be the leading NFL brand in Germany, where they have one full-time business ops staffer based in Frankfurt who is supported by third-party agencies.
Ferron says the combination of fan, TV and business opportunities, and the country’s familiarity with the game, made the deployment there a no-brainer as they look to compete with the Chiefs to be the most popular NFL team in Germany. The San Francisco 49ers and the Green Bay Packers, despite not having marketing rights, also has a solid fan base across the country.
“We’ve been No. 1 for a long time, it is our goal and expectation to retain that spot,” Ferron said.
One of the ways they’re doing that is by partnering and trading secrets with the German national soccer team. That club trained at team facilities in Foxborough last month. The Patriots, on the other hand, plan to use the German Football Association’s campus during practice on Friday and Saturday. The Patriots are also taking advantage of the lack of jurisdiction that comes with global marketing rights, with activations already held in cities like Munich, Berlin and Dusseldorf (where the league recently opened its Germany headquarters).
The Patriots aren’t starting from scratch. The western European country was previously home to five franchises of the now-defunct NFL Europe. While soccer may always be the nation’s primary sport, there’s been a growing fandom for American football, especially with help from the budding European League of Football (ELF). The increased fandom for the Patriots and other NFL teams only bodes well for the league’s international push as it plans to take games to Brazil or Spain next year.
“Clearly, global growth is a major strategic priority for the league and our clubs and driving fandom and engagement around the world is paramount to that goal of becoming a truly global sport property,” NFL executive vice president of club business and league events Peter O’Reilly said. “That is not only about excitement around the international games themselves, but about overall engagement with the NFL.”
The NFL, which has a media deal with German TV channel Radio Luxemburg, says it has about 18 million casual fans in Germany. The most lucrative U.S. sports league hopes its most successful team in the last 20 years can keep building in the untapped nation, which carries one of the world’s largest economies.
The Patriots may be delivering uncharacteristic results in the post Brady era, but that hasn’t slowed down the marketing initiatives off the field in Germany, where they view success as a slow, long-term play. “It’s really about finding eyeballs and being where people are,” Ferron added.
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