Major U.S. Leagues Scrambling to Cash In Overseas

Tex Schramm was in his office the other day at the Dallas Cowboys facility, packing up as president of the Cowboys and looking ahead to his new job as organizer of the International Football League.

On his desk was a football magazine, but he hadn’t read a word of it.

“It’s all in French,” he said.

The National Football League is going global, and he is leading the way, organizing a “minor” league that will be filled with the kinds of players who made up the strike replacement teams in 1987, as well as some of the best players in the handful of European leagues.

But the NFL is not alone. All of the United States’ most popular professional sports--baseball, basketball and hockey, have made inroads into the fertile and lucrative world of international sports.

Schramm has become only the latest player in a game that is reaching across oceans and political boundaries to produce some of the most intriguing sports possibilities ever. In the last six months or so, the following events have hit the headlines: the NFL plans a league in Europe; the Boston Celtics play in Madrid; pros are allowed to play basketball in the Olympics; the Washington Capitals plan to go to the Soviet Union; a Soviet baseball team comes to Washington. With all this activity on international playing fields, can a truly World Series be far behind?

“There is an enormous marketplace and enormous appetite for sports around the world,” said NBA Commissioner David Stern. “We are very much in the entertainment business. We’re looking at a global marketplace. We have to. We are a global company. We’re not alone, either. I think everyone is doing it.”

The NFL’s international league, which will begin play in the spring of 1990, has become the latest and most concrete example of the global expansion of the United States’ most popular team sports. Foreign countries are opening their arms to the NBA, NHL and pro baseball as never before. The television possibilities--and TV dollars--seem endless to league executives. So, too, do the licensing prospects.

Within a few decades, many experts believe, international play will be an integral part of league scheduling. It might be a worldwide league, in which the Los Angeles Lakers play the teams from Rome, Madrid, Paris and Frankfort on their far-eastern swing before taking the Concorde back to New York. Or it might be a worldwide championship series, in which the Calgary Flames, winner of the Stanley Cup, play the Swedish national team, winner of the World Cup, in a special seven-game series.

Whatever it is, the wide world of sports most definitely is getting smaller, and the reasons, in addition to the thawing of U.S.-Soviet relations and the world’s incredible thirst for sports, are money, marketing and TV.

Take the NBA. Fans in 70 countries have watched league games this season on television; Italians have been able to see 60 games, the French 40, the Soviets 14. The videotapes the NBA sent to the Soviet Union included commercials for Coca-Cola, Mastercard International and Mars Inc., Stern said. Converse expects $50 million worth of shoe sales outside the United States this year; Sheraton will be the official hotel of the McDonald’s Open tournament (featuring the Denver Nuggets) in Rome this fall; licensed NBA camps have been held in Italy and Spain.

“We are replicating what we’ve done in this country,” Stern said.

The NBA still is not making much money overseas compared with the revenues it receives at home: domestic gross revenues will exceed $400 million this year; international gross revenues will be about $4 million, Stern said.

“But we look at it the same way we looked at network cable TV 10 years ago. In 1979, the NBA got $400,000 from network cable. In 1989, we’ll get $27 million. International opportunities, though embryonic, show just as much potential,” he said.

The NBA has jumped far ahead of major league baseball and the NFL, and slightly ahead of the NHL, in its courtship of internationalization. It’s easy to see why. Basketball is a very popular sport in many areas of Europe and the Americas. U.S. college players not quite good enough to play in the NBA go there. Italy, Spain and France have well-organized leagues. Kids play the sport. Also, one or two great players can make a country very good very fast. Remember Brazil’s Oscar Schmidt beating the United States at the 1987 Pan American Games?

The NHL comes next in the global game, again because hockey is a sport played and loved in various nations around the world. The NHL actually fares much better in Scandinavia than it does in, say, Houston. The Stanley Cup playoffs are televised in Finland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, West Germany, France, Italy and Yugoslavia, said Joel Nixon, NHL vice president of broadcasting.

The NHL has had better relations with the Soviet Union than any other U.S. league, although the recent defection of star Soviet player Alexander Mogilny might cause repercussions. A Soviet sports publication has called the Buffalo Sabres, Mogilny’s new team, “horse thieves.” NHL officials still are trying to sort out what, if any, damage has been done to their future dealings with the Soviets.

Meanwhile, NHL marketing and licensing efforts pale in contrast to the NBA’s, but outshine those of pro baseball and football.

“Everybody wears tennis shoes or sneakers,” said Washington Capitals General Manager David Poile, who has searched the world for talent. “No one wears skates around on the street.”

Pro baseball and football are in a different situation. Many areas of the world still are learning about baseball, and some of the hotbeds (Japan, Taiwan, Cuba) are far from the United States, either geographically or politically. The NFL is relatively unknown in nearly every corner of the world; few kids outside the United States play or understand the sport. So the NFL has to export its product, which is what it is doing with its new international league. Having seen the inroads made by the NBA, the NFL had no choice but to act. When has the NFL ever let anyone get ahead of it in sports innovation?

Every U.S. professional team sport has different plans and concerns, but one constant remains for them all. “There is enormous growth potential in international sports,” said Nixon. “The greatest is in Europe, but it carries over to other parts of the world as well.”

Two things are occurring in Europe to make the marketplace more agreeable to an American sports invasion. Deregulation has come to European television and, all of a sudden, viewers have more channels to watch. In England, the existing four channels have been doubled to eight, including one all-sports channel, through the use of cable and new satellites. Hundreds of television hours are now available, although most British households still can receive only the four channels. Other nations are having similar television revolutions. The rest now is up to the leagues.

“The challenge to us is how to translate their familiarity with hockey to an enjoyment of NHL-style play,” said Nixon. “But there is no doubt that TV is our missionary. It is our calling card. It helps us create marketing and licensing opportunities. It is the advance man for us.”

The other factor of great interest to the marketing men and women of U.S. sports is the unification of Europe into a broader, barrier-free Common Market in 1992.

“There will always be national pride: the Italians will be for the Italians, the French will be for the French,” said Donald Dell, president of ProServ, a Washington-based sports-marketing firm. “But, in 1992, the barriers come down, and all of a sudden (nearly 500 million people) are part of one economic unit. That’s what everyone is frantically trying to tap into. The people who were in the market first will have the advantage.”

A corresponding occurrence has been the Soviet Union’s peek-a-boo interest in U.S. sports. Now you see them, now you don’t. Several Soviet hockey players, led by defenseman Viacheslav Fetisov, seem to be on the verge of playing in the NHL. But only one Soviet, winger Sergei Priakin, has joined the NHL with the blessing of Soviet officials.

The same situation goes for the NBA. Center Arvidas Sabonis has been drafted by the Portland Trail Blazers, but his latest team was the Soviet Olympians. Most think it’s merely a matter of time before he and others come here to play.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see them next year,” Stern said.

“The NHL has had more than a 10-year relationship with the Soviet Union, and it has just happened there,” said Atlanta Hawks General Manager Stan Kasten, who has drafted and has interest in other Soviet players.

NBA officials hope that the recent decision by the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) that allows pros to play for their nations in international competition will encourage the Soviets to allow their players to join the NBA. That way, the Soviets know that they will come back to the fold in 1992 to play for their team in the Barcelona Olympics, as well as at other times for world competition.

No one is certain how Natalia Zvereva’s decision to sign with an American agent will affect the Soviets’ collective mind. Upset that she wasn’t able to keep most of her winnings, she jumped to ProServ. Other Soviets are expected to follow, so U.S. agents are ready and waiting.

Sabonis will be a big catch, if and when he comes.

“I think Sabonis can play in the NBA next year,” said Dell. “He’ll get some of the money and the federation will get some. That’s only fair. The federation subsidized him for 10 years.”

The Soviets are coming here and the Americans are going there. Exhibitions, a hallmark of the NHL’s longstanding friendship with the Soviet hockey federation, are the calling card of the NBA as well. Although the league hasn’t tested the waters in the Soviet Union, it has made itself well-known throughout Europe.

Basketball can brag that some of the best players in the world don’t play in the United States. That fact helps the sport go international.

“The United States has the greatest number of world-class basketball players,” Stern said. “But keep in mind that basketball squads are made up of 12 players. The opening up of the Olympics is a two-way street. People talk about how much it will help the United States. But other NBA players from other countries will help their nations as well.”

All of this, of course, helps the NBA. Stern said the league has made 2,500 shipments of NBA videotapes around the world this season. All are edited game broadcasts and/or half-hour highlights. This has been going on for several years. In 1987, CBS broadcaster Dick Stockton, vacationing in London, turned on his hotel television set and heard himself broadcasting an NBA final game that had been taped the month before.

Stern is so serious about marketing the NBA worldwide that he has a five-pronged attack: broadcasting, licensing, sponsorship, the playing of games, and other opportunities such as clinics.

Advantage International, a Washington-based sports-marketing firm, has arranged for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and a group of retired NBA standouts to take a two-to-three-week tour of Taipei and Australia this year. They will play games and conduct clinics and will be accompanied by two NBA coaches.

“There’s a great international market for basketball,” said Lee Fentress, managing partner of Advantage International. “In Europe, we could literally take a tour and have a full arena in every city. We think that same kind of interest is present elsewhere.”

The NHL prepares highlights occasionally for Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, Nixon said, but most of the league’s efforts are in the frozen northlands of Europe. The Soviet Union’s interest in the NHL hasn’t wavered. Tapes of several games featuring the Washington Capitals, Calgary Flames and Los Angeles Kings were shipped there this spring. The Capitals and Flames were on because they will play in the Soviet Union in September; the Kings were on because of Wayne Gretzky.

“After they showed the tapes, they told us, ‘What do we do to get more?’ ” Nixon said.

The NHL receives less than $1 million annually in foreign TV revenues, but Nixon projects it will be receiving $5 million a year by 1994. “Of course,” he said, “all that could change. We are at the mercy of satellite launches and government regulation.”

Hockey executives cautiously believe their sport, along with basketball, will prosper as internationalization grows.

“Looking into a crystal ball, I see the Stanley Cup champion playing the world champion in a seven-game series to be viewed by a Super Bowl-sized audience all over the world,” Poile said. “At least that’s something we can hope for.”

Another possibility for the NHL is to place an all-Soviet NHL team in a North American city that does not have a franchise.

International exchanges are nothing new in hockey; check the NHL rosters. As Poile said: “Over the years, we’ve been the United Nations here: a Swede, a Finn, a Czech, U.S. players, Canadian players and even one born in Taiwan.”

Baseball is different. For now. In 1992, it will be a full-medal sport for the first time at the Olympics. This is the reason the Soviets sent a team to play U.S. colleges last month. They want to learn the game. The Olympics are important to them.

Here’s a question that has been asked at water coolers in offices around America: How long will it take for the Soviets to win the gold medal in baseball? Some think it will be only eight to 12 years. Others say it will be the next century. But all believe it will happen.

As for a real world series, Fay Vincent, deputy commissioner of baseball, said: “Perhaps. The level of competition will have to be equal. In the near future, that’s difficult to see. But I don’t want to sound arrogant. Look at hockey. It was Canada’s national sport and they were the best, and, all of a sudden, in 1972, the Russians nearly beat them.”

The major leagues have not exported their product as extensively as the NBA and NHL, but that could change. New Commissioner Bart Giamatti hired Vincent to work on opportunities abroad. Every other year, baseball sends all-stars to Japan to play seven exhibition games. Vincent said the St. Louis Cardinals are considering a trip to Europe later this year to play some exhibitions themselves.

“We are building a foundation right now,” he said. “We don’t want to have activities get ahead of us. But we are aware that wherever American culture is displayed, baseball is a part of it. It is the quintessential American pastime.”

However, Vincent declined to comment on Cuba’s involvement in the game. Cuba has one of the world’s best teams, and probably will be favored to win the gold medal at the 1992 Olympics.

Schramm knows that no one in the world can compete with the NFL in American football, which is why there will be a “limited number of nationals” on the 10-12 IFL teams that begin play next spring.

“Right now, most don’t have the skills to play our football,” he said. “They have trouble doing something as simple as catching a football. They all grew up playing soccer, where no one uses their hands.

“This is something that has to be built up. It will take a generation of athletes who have learned how to play football as children. But we have no doubt it will come.”

TV continues to be a catalyst. The Super Bowl has been shown around the world and NFL games have been taped and shown in Britain for most of the decade. For the first time ever, NFL games will be carried live on British TV next season.

Print coverage is increasing, too. The Times of London has assigned a reporter to cover the NFL, and publications on the NFL abound.

“There are more four-color, slick magazines devoted to U.S. football in Europe than there are in the United States,” Schramm said, only half joking. Because there are so many media outlets for advertising products, marketing and licensing prospects are unlimited, he said.

Meanwhile, the annual exhibition game between NFL teams continues at Wembley Stadium. Another game has been played in Sweden, and one is scheduled for Tokyo this summer.

“We see a continued growth in the exposure and interest of foreign audiences in the American sports product,” said Neal Pilson, president of CBS Sports. “We’re still dealing in very small numbers, but it’s an active growth opportunity.”

Some might find it difficult to envision a London-Chicago home-and-home series in a pro sport. But take a look at history, says one international expert.

“Baseball teams used to go by railroad,” said John Mosher, director of international programs for Special Olympics International and a former U.S. Olympic Committee executive board member. “No one could fathom the idea of playing on the West Coast. That’s important to remember when talking about the possibilities for the future.”