Adam Minter, Columnist

American Fans Aren't Enough for US Sports Anymore

December 27, 2025 at 1:00 PM UTC

Adam Minter is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering the business of sports. He is the author, most recently, of “Secondhand: Travels in the New Global Garage Sale."

And the (international) crowd goes wild.
Photographer: David Berding/Getty Images North America

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American sports leagues treated global expansion as an aspiration for decades, but it was something to pursue only when convenient — and often without much strategic forethought.

The calculus changed in 2025, as evidenced by the organizations that signaled that going global is now a permanent feature of doing business as an American sports league, and the National Football League has provided the clearest example of how far a US league is willing to go.