Football Is Coming to Saudi Arabia, Where Soccer Is King

Business|Football Is Coming to Saudi Arabia, Where Soccer Is King

The National Football League is looking for new markets; Saudi Arabia is looking for new sports. So next year, some of the N.F.L.’s biggest stars will play in Saudi Arabia, a country where football means soccer.

On March 21, Fanatics, which runs the league’s online merchandise shop, will produce a flag football event in Riyadh that will feature former stars like Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski as well as a host of current players. The event is a foothold for Fanatics: The Saudi sovereign wealth fund invested in the online licensed sports goods retailer in 2017, as did the Qatari sovereign wealth fund in 2022. Fanatics also sells sports memorabilia, and customers from the Middle East have been among its biggest buyers in recent years.

The National Football League will not produce the event, but team owners are allowing some of their players to participate. Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb and San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, among others, have agreed to take part.

Several N.F.L. owners are also expected to attend the three-team, round-robin tournament, at which Fanatics is planning a halftime show. The teams will be led by three of the league’s best-known head coaches: Pete Carroll of the Las Vegas Raiders, Sean Payton of the Denver Broncos and Kyle Shanahan of the 49ers.

“It is just a great opportunity to expand the game globally,” said Mr. Brady, who is helping produce the event. “Sometimes, you have to get outside your comfort zone to create awareness. Soccer has done a great job of that, and we want to help” do that with football.

The event is the N.F.L.’s first step toward potentially entering the Saudi market. The league has been expanding across the globe at an increasing pace. It has been playing regular season games in North and South America and in Western Europe, and it is evaluating new markets like the United Arab Emirates, Japan and other countries with little connection to football. It will not play a regular season game in these places unless football is played locally — it is a niche sport in Saudi Arabia — and there are significant commercial opportunities like media and sponsorship deals.

“We’re not going to go into a market unless we’re really committed for the long haul in terms of year-round engagement,” said Peter O’Reilly, the executive vice president at the N.F.L. in charge of international expansion.

The N.F.L. has been using flag football to generate broader interest in the game at home, particularly among women. The league has been encouraging states to make flag football an official high school sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association is likely to vote on whether to certify it as an “emerging sport.” The N.F.L. lobbied the International Olympic Committee to include flag football in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.

The league also wants to create professional flag football leagues for men and women and is interviewing two potential operators to run a league with six to eight teams, said Troy Vincent, the executive vice president of football operations. The owners may invest in individual franchises or the N.F.L. may form “some kind of limited partnership” in the league, he said.

The N.F.L. has also used flag football to teach the game to boys and girls overseas. Mr. Vincent wants the league to team up with current and former players like Kelvin Beachum and Larry Fitzgerald, who are forming their own business partnerships in the Middle East.

Soccer is by far the most popular sport in Saudi Arabia. But the government has been trying to diversify its economy by hosting boxing, soccer and tennis matches, as well as the world’s richest horse race, the Saudi Cup, which offers a $20 million purse. The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, is the main backer of LIV Golf, a rival golf tour to the P.G.A.

“We are pleased to be playing our part in supporting flag football’s continued growth,” Turki al-Sheikh, who leads the Saudi government’s pro sports ventures, said in a statement. The tournament will be played during the Riyadh Season of sports and entertainment events, which runs roughly from October through March.

The five-on-five flag football tournament will be at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh and shown by Fox Sports, and the comedian Kevin Hart will host the broadcast.