Sao Paulo.- Brazil Receive this Friday for the second consecutive season a game of the billionaire football league NFLthat in its objective of becoming Global has its eyes on this gigantic market of 213 million inhabitants.
The Kansas City Chiefs -Preentes in the last three editions of the Super Bowl and winners of four trophies- and the Los Angeles Chargers They will face from 9:00 p.m. (00h00 on Saturday GMT) in the neo -chemical sand of Sao Paulo, home of the Corinthians soccer club.
High assistance is expected in this stadium with capacity for 49,000 spectators.
There, a year ago and in front of more than 47,000 fans, the Eagles of Philadelphia won 34-29 to the Green Bay Packers, with three TouchDowns of Saquon Barkley, to start their way to the Super Bowl championship.
It was the first NFL game in South America.
The country of “Soccer”
Sports jewel in the United States, with 23,000 million dollars of income last year, the NFL seeks to globalize as the NBA did since the time of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan.
This season will play seven games in cities outside the United States: Dublin, London, Berlin and Madrid, in addition to Sao Paulo. Melbourne will join in 2026.
In Brazil, the country of “soccer”, the phenomenon exceeded expectations.
According to its own estimates, the NFL has its second largest “fans base” in the South American giant, with 36 million fans, only behind the 48 million that it has in Mexico.
This year’s mid -time show will feature Colombian urban music singer Karol G.
“A brutal phenomenon”
“It is a brutal phenomenon. Brazil began to create a ‘Fande’ in the era of 49ers”, five times winners of the Super Bowl in the 1980s and 1990s, tells the AFP Sergio Arenillas, narrator of the NFL in the Globo Brazilian media group.
There were no social networks and cable television barely appeared, but the echo of the San Francisco 49ers of the mythical quartback Joe Montana resonated.
Then a shy crooked arose.
“When I was a child, I played NFL video games.
He traveled last year to Sao Paulo with his wife, Clarissa, in love like him from American football, to see his team for the first time. She was birthday.
“It was a sleepy dream. Magic,” he says.
The Brazilian flag is recorded in the Eagles champions rings, in tribute to the place where its 2024 triumphal began.
“Hard. Details. United (Taught. Detailed. Together)”, reads under the Brazilian flag on the inner face of the ring, conquered when beating Chiefs in the Super Bowl (40-22).
“Amateur” level
NFL fans groups in Brazil proliferate social networks.
A group of Eagles fans organizes the “Quintal do Barkley”, meeting to see the games. “An event made by those who swell, for those who swell,” they promote in X.
The entertainment world also pushed, when the ex -star of the NFL, Tom Brady, married the super Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen. The marriage lasted 13 years.
Brazil has an ambassador to the NFL with Cairo Santos, who plays with the Chicago Bears his twelfth season in that league, but does not have a solid local championship.
A first attempt, which did not curdle, was the Tochdown Tournament (2009-2015) and today a national championship with 32 teams is played, many with English names, such as the current champion, Recife Mariners.
“The level is amateur,” Arenillas.
The Brazilian American Football Confederation, however, trusts the “growth potential” of this sport, according to the organization’s director of operations, Rodrigo Nascimento.
A modality of discipline, “Flag Football”, will be at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games.
