Why the NFL sees opportunity in Brazil — and how the Ravens fit

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For years Lamar Jackson had been building a fanbase in a faraway place without even knowing it.

It came to light in 2024 when a reporter asked him about his growing following in Brazil during a news conference.

Jackson raised an eyebrow in surprise. “Brazil? Man, that’s dope,” he said. “I gotta go to Brazil.”

Video of the response went viral on social media, and the comments section was soon filled with love for Jackson. Come to Brasil and Brasil te ama (Brazil loves you), fans wrote.

The calls from Brazilian fans to international stars are frequent and widespread across all corners of social media. (Come to Brasil is a well-known meme.) What started as a plea to artists who often skipped the country on world tours has become emblematic of the passion of Brazilian fans. And the NFL is paying attention.

The Ravens will play the Dallas Cowboys in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday, the first NFL game ever held in the city of more than 6 million residents. The game will put Jackson, 29, on a field where his artistic flair should resonate with fans accustomed to rooting on dazzling, daring soccer talents.

Whether the Ravens will follow the game with a push to cultivate fans in the region remains to beseen, team officials said.

History of NFL in Brazil

American football, as it’s known in Brazil, wasn’t widely broadcast until the early 1990s, when ESPN Brasil launched, and it’s still not nearly as popular as soccer. Super Bowls before then were televised up to a week later.

But interest in the sport is growing, with internal NFL data showing more than 35 million fans in the country. Social media is the primary driver of business in Brazil, said Luis Martinez, who leads the NFL’s efforts to spread the game in the country.

It was a “no-brainer” for NFL leadership to go deeper into Brazil, said Matt Shapiro, the league’s global vice president, event and market strategy. After NFL games in Sao Paulo in 2024 and 2025, Rio de Janeiro made “the most logical sense” for a host city because the league wanted to reach more fans. Rio hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup final and the 2016 Summer Olympics. The city, it reasoned, had not only the stadiums for a football game but the sporting culture.

There’s a natural affinity for American culture among Brazilians, said Joel Wolfe, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who specializes in Brazilian history and the history of football. Walk around certain neighborhoods in Sao Paulo and you will see people wearing sports apparel, including New York Yankees baseball caps, and other American brands as a status symbol, he said.

The NFL hasn’t been able to pinpoint what the appeal is from Brazilians. But there is at least one person to thank: Gisele Bündchen.

Bündchen needed no introduction to most Brazilian households during her modeling years. Her former husband, Tom Brady, however, did. Among Brazilian fans, the former Patriots quarterback was known as Giselo — her husband.

Rise of the Ravens

When Jackson broke into the NFL, Ravens fan groups in Brazil grew rapidly.

The Ravens became a “top tier” team in a country where people become fans of teams because they like their colors or star players or the team has a winning record, Martinez said. Teams can quickly rise and fall in popularity.

In Jackson, Brazilians see how football can also be a jogo bonito, or beautiful game. André Santos, a Brazilian Ravens fan, compared him to national stars so ubiquitous they go by one name worldwide: Ronaldinho and Neymar.

“His unpredictability, the way that he’s like an agile player and the way he does things like no one knows how to read him,” Santos said.

It’s hard to know how many Ravens fans there are in Brazil, said Brad Downs, the Ravens’ senior vice president of marketing. The team monitors multiple fan accounts, tracks the locations of people registered for its email lists and collates data from sales on licensed NFL sites. Jackson and Derrick Henry jerseys are among the top sellers in Brazil, but that offers an incomplete picture.

The opportunity

When André Suman, a Brazilian living in Bel Air, traveled to his home country for the first NFL game in 2024, he brought with him a sticker for every NFL team. His plan: Hand a sticker to the first person he saw supporting each team and ultimately gauge how many teams were popular among Brazilian fans.

He gave away all 32 — though he didn’t spot a Carolina Panthers jersey until he was leaving the stadium.

Like many Brazilians, Andre Franceschini’s mother was a Patriots fan because of Giselo.

But, with Brady’s retirement and divorce from Bündchen, her fandom was up for grabs.

Her son easily convinced her to join the flock and cheer on Jackson. She now has a No. 8 jersey and will be attending the game.

Without personal ties to the cities, Brazilians pick their teams for different reasons. Wolfe said he knows many Brazilians who like the Green Bay Packers because their colors are the same as Brazil’s national team. Santos said there are a lot of Kansas City Chiefs fans because of Patrick Mahomes.

Suman mentioned that a Las Vegas Raiders hat is like a Yankees hat — people wear it because they think it looks cool. And Martinez said the NFL saw a surge in Chicago Bears fans because their kicker is Brazilian.

But 41% of Brazil’s NFL fans aren’t attached to a team, the league said. That means there’s an opportunity for the Ravens to expand their reach in a country of 213 million people. Martinez said the NFL expects about 80% of the fans at the game to be first-timers, and Shapiro added the league often sees a bump in interest for teams playing in new markets.

Shapiro said the NFL also expects plenty of intercontinental travel, giving the Ravens an opportunity to engage with fans from all over South America and beyond.

“There’s people there that may get introduced to it at that time, and if we can grab them as Ravens fans, that’s great,” Downs said.

The Ravens will, of course, be competing with the Cowboys, on the field and for fans. They will also see representation from the four teams with Global Market Programs in Brazil: the Philadelphia Eagles, the Patriots, the Miami Dolphins and the Detroit Lions.

The Global Market Program initiative allows a team to treat an international market as it would its own. It can encourage fan engagement by hosting events, seeking commercial opportunities and building the NFL’s flag football initiative.

The Eagles played in the first game in Brazil, in 2024, and did not have it as a designated marketing area at the time.

But they won the game and then won the Super Bowl. They honored the Brazil game on their Super Bowl rings, Martinez said, and became a Global Marketing Program team after.

Downs did not commit to the Ravens adding Brazil as a market, but he did not rule it out. The Ravens added the U.K. after playing in London in 2023. The Ravens have only one international market; 13 teams have at least three.

“We’ll see what kind of experience we have down there,” Downs said. “We know we have a good fan group down there. But it’s something we talk about every year: Do we want to add any markets?”

Jackson, meanwhile, was asked this week whether the Cowboys, known as “America’s Team,” would have a fan advantage in Brazil.

“This is America,” he said. “That’s Brazil. So we’ll see”

Santos believes the crowd split may be surprising to many, too. He said, if he had to bet, he would guess Ravens fans will outnumber Cowboys fans.