Indianapolis Colts offer blueprint for the Bundesliga in America

It was certainly a brilliant weekend for the Indianapolis Colts in Germany as they defeated the Atlanta Falcons 31-25 in front of more than 72,000 fans at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. Before the game, the Colts added Sauce Gardner in a blockbuster trade with the New York Jets just before their trip to Germany.

“The timing was certainly perfect and gives you some insight into how we think about our organization,” Indianapolis Colts CCO Roger VanDerSnick said as part of a pre-game media roundtable when asked about the trade. VanDerSnick answered questions from a few selected journalists about the Colts’ Germany strategy and the National Football League’s partnership with the Deutsche Fußball Liga (DFL), which governs the Bundesliga and the 2nd Bundesliga.

That partnership has become a cornerstone for both entities as they seek to grow in each other’s marketsand for the Colts, trading for Gardner only increased the hype surrounding their presence in Berlin. After all, Indianapolis had already started the season excellently and the victory on Sunday increased its record to 8-2.

However, the growth strategy goes much further than just one match in Berlin. “We have been on the market in Germany for 18 months,” VanDerSnick said. “Our strategy goes well beyond this weekend. Overall, it’s all part of a multi-faceted plan.”

What does that plan look like? “You have to be authentic and committed to the market,” VanDerSnick said. The NFL’s presence in the German market goes far beyond just one game. All eleven teams with rights to Germany were on the ground in Berlin, creating different points of contact and experiences in the capital.

The joint effort of all NFL teams to grow their brand abroad is certainly not lost in the Bundesliga. However, replicating it is difficult. A recent attempt by LaLiga to bring a regular match to Miami has ended in disaster, and whether the Serie A match in Australia will still go ahead remains to be seen.

Not that playing abroad would ever be an option for the Bundesliga. With the exception of RB Leipzig, Wolfsburg and Bayer Leverkusen, all clubs are controlled by their fans. And German fans are traditionalists through and through. Fan protests ended the league’s attempt to secure an investor and led to the cancellation of Monday’s games.

Therefore, it is almost unthinkable to move a competition, even the Franz-Beckenbauer Supercup. Yet the Bundesliga is still trying to learn from what the Indianapolis Colts and the other 10 NFL teams did in Berlin over the weekend. The Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two leagues in 2022 means the DFL is deeply involved in events on the ground.

So, with that in mind, what can the league learn from the likes of the Indianapolis Colts? “You have to be authentic, work with the right people and understand the local humor,” VanDerSnick said. “You can’t buy your way into a market,” VanDerSnick added.

Indeed, that was a message VanDerSnick kept hammering home. To grow in a foreign market, a sports entity must be in it for the long term.

“If you want to be a part of it, and you want to be there in 15 years, and we think this can be very meaningful because we have to grow and do the hard work knowing we’re not going to make a lot of money,” VanDerSnick said of the Colts’ commitment to Germany. “Let’s talk about the P&L. There won’t be a lot of P, but a lot of L, and that will be the case for the next five to eight years.”

However, putting long-term success over short-term success has always been the NFL’s greatest success. “The NFL didn’t get to this point right away,” VanDerSnick said. That’s true. For decades, the NFL was overshadowed by college and then other major sports like baseball and basketball before becoming the sports superpower it is today.

There is a lesson in this for the Bundesliga and its clubs. In order to grow, the competition will have to be consistent in its market visits. A recent example is Eintracht Frankfurt, which visits Louisville two years in a row. That’s certainly a much smaller approach than the NFL games in Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin, but it’s consistent.

The same can be said for Bayern Munich, who have been very consistent in visiting foreign markets in the off-season. Bayern even forces other clubs to do more. And honestly, that’s happening more and more.

For example, 2. Bundesliga club Darmstadt 98 will travel to the United States in March to play a friendly against USL Championship side San Antonio FC. That trip meets many of the criteria VanDerSnick suggested for authentically growing your brand abroad. Bring your own partners, work with local partners and stay true to your own brand.

It has a strategy that has certainly worked for the NFL, not only in Germany but also in the United Kingdom. But it now appears that Germany is increasingly the NFL’s preferred target market. To some outsiders, this may feel like an infringement on the Bundesliga’s home turf. But DFL bosses don’t see it that way; for them, it’s an opportunity to learn and replicate some of the same growth strategies in the United States.