Meet the Ravens fans building the flock in Brazil

Clad in the green and yellow of his home country’s flag, André Suman approached Ravens first-round draft pick Vega Ioane for an autograph at a trading card event at the Maryland State Fairgrounds.

Then he asked a question with the characteristic enthusiasm of a Brazilian sports fan.

“I have a group with fans here, more than 200 Brazilians,” he said, holding up his phone. “Will you say hi to the group?”

With a grin and a wave, Ioane responded, “What’s up, Brazilians? Pleasure to meet y’all!”

Suman, who hails from Sao Paulo but is a resident of Bel Air, is in the midst of a surreal week. His favorite team is scheduled to play the first NFL game in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday against the Dallas Cowboys.

It seems unreal to the man who remembers cutting pictures of Ravens players out of magazines and putting tape over them to create stickers because there was no official NFL merch available for sale in his country.

Although the NFL identifies Brazil, with the world’s seventh-largest population, as an emerging market, American football is more of a fasciation than a passion and fans there yearn for better access.

Suman got that, unexpectedly, when his wife’s job moved them to Maryland and he started attending games.

“When I am at M&T Bank Stadium, it’s a nice feeling because I feel like there’s no other place in the world I want to be,” Suman said. “... I feel like, at 40 years old, I’m living the dream I had when I was 8, 9, 10 years old.”

Other Brazilians haven’t been so lucky.

Among the members of Suman’s WhatsApp group of Brazilian NFL fans who have tickets for this week, more than half will be attending their first game.

Suman believes having the privilege of living in the U.S. gives him the responsibility to help fans in Brazil. In 2021, he started grabbing extra programs and anything that fits in an envelope to mail home.

“It’s a simple thing if you live here in the U.S., but for a friend in Brazil, they are going to frame it and put it in their bedroom,” Suman said.

Over time, his influence grew. When Brazilians visit for a game they reach out to him, and when he goes back to Brazil he loads his suitcase with NFL-themed gifts.

“When André engages with that kind of stuff, it’s really cool to see the reactions of people who don’t get to have that kind of contact with the sport,” said André Santos, a Sao Paulo resident and member of Ravens Brazil, a fan group recognized as a “Flock” by the franchise (meaning it has an online presence and regular meetups).

So of course Suman is planning on being in Rio this weekend. Nothing — not even a friend’s wedding — could distract him from the chance to cheer on the Ravens alongside his countrymen.

Getting into the other football

Suman first watched football in 1993 — but only because Michael Jackson was playing the Super Bowl halftime show. He found he enjoyed the game, and a few years later he fell for the Ravens because of the fierce defenses led by Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs.

For others, joining the flock came down to happenstance.

André Franceschini, who is from Rio de Janeiro and lives in New Jersey, happened to watch his first NFL game on Jan. 12, 2013. It was the Mile High Miracle, when Joe Flacco threw a 70-yard touchdown to Jacoby Jones with 31 seconds left to tie the Denver Broncos in the divisional round of the playoffs.

He was studying abroad in the U.S. and watched when the Ravens won the Super Bowl weeks later. He liked the team, and its colors, but he didn’t completely fall until Lamar Jackson was drafted.

Santos’ first experience with the Ravens ended in heartbreak. He was on a business trip to Baltimore the weekend the Ravens hosted the Pittsburgh Steelers in December 2010. From a bar in Fells Point, he watched the game slip away when Troy Polamalu strip-sacked Flacco.

By then he was all in on the Ravens.

“It was like from my own heart to choose to root for the Ravens, and I don’t know, I just got hooked,” Santos said.

At the time Suman started paying attention to the NFL, it was “super niche.” When Santos got into it, he said, people thought it was weird. He watched the Ravens’ Super Bowl win alone. Franceschini had only four friends to discuss football with.

But the rise of social media brought more opportunities to connect with other Ravens fans scattered across their country. After years of finding people through the Ravens subreddit, about five years ago, Santos connected with two others who went through the process of creating a fan group — with a social media presence and watch parties — and applying to be named an official Flock.

The group brought the three Andres together from different parts of the world and has created a community in which they bond over their love of a team that plays over 4,700 miles away.

The ambassador

Suman took Franchescini to his first game at M&T Bank Stadium, serving as tour guide. At games, he grabs swag to send to fans back home.

Suman is allowed to bring up to $1,000 in gifts when he travels home, so he stuffs his suitcase with jerseys, hats and T-shirts.

Football merchandise seldom makes its way to stores in Brazil and, when it does, it’s not affordable for many people, Santos said.

The lack of accessibility to merchandise in Brazil is a “pain point” for Luis Martinez, the NFL’s general manager in Brazil. Martinez said the league tries to work with local vendors to sell merchandise through major department stores at a reasonable price.

Suman, though, is doing his part. He’ll bring Santos a jersey and his nephew figurines from multiple teams and a Jackson jersey.

‘I cry because it’s crazy’

When the news broke that the Ravens were the Dallas Cowboys’ Rio opponent, Franceschini cried.

“I cry because it’s crazy,” Franceschini said. “... I grow up going to this stadium and the Ravens will play there, and in this trip, I will go to the Ravens game. I will take my mom with me, and I will visit my friends, my family in the same trip I watch the Ravens game.”

Shortly after the game was announced, the Ravens contacted their Brazil Flock, senior vice president of marketing Brad Downs said.

Typically the Ravens would plan ways to engage fans in an area they rarely (or never) visit, but the Brazil Flock was a step ahead of them. So they took a different approach.

“We don’t want to compete with our local fan group where they’re planning things on their own,” Downs said. “So we kind of took the approach of, ‘Hey, let’s get a group down there, and let’s just work with what’s happening and create as much excitement as possible.’”

In addition to taking part in parties and tailgates this week, the fans have been planning how they can welcome the Ravens with a truly Brazilian game experience.

“Since we are used to chant and music and smoke and flags and banners, we are trying to do something to create this atmosphere in the NFL game because, as Brazilian fans, we feel like we need to impress the NFL,” Suman said.