Event Recap | More Than a Game: Sports and the Transatlantic Relationship
On October 2, PCFR hosted More Than a Game: Sports and the Transatlantic Relationship at Mountain America Stadium, bringing together UK Consul General Paul Rennie and leaders from Arizona’s sports community for a conversation on the globalization of American sports. The discussion explored how teams and leagues are building audiences overseas, why the UK and Europe are increasingly important markets, and how sports can deepen economic, cultural, and people-to-people ties across the Atlantic. The conversation also looked closer to home, at what Arizona brings to this increasingly competitive global sports landscape and where the state has opportunities to grow.
The conversation was held under the Chatham House Rule, so the takeaways below are shared without attribution to individual speakers.
1. The biggest growth opportunities in sports are increasingly global.
The numbers tell part of the story. Around 1.3 billion people watched the 2022 FIFA World Cup final. The Super Bowl draws a much smaller global audience, but remains a far more valuable commercial property. Looking ahead, that gap may narrow. As incomes rise in large markets like India and Brazil, the huge audiences already watching global sports will become more commercially valuable. At the same time, fans have more ways to watch sports than ever before. There has never been more sports content sitting behind paywalls, but there has also never been more available for free.
Cross-border activity is already following suit, with more to come. U.S. investors now have stakes in nearly 40 percent of clubs across Europe’s five biggest soccer leagues, while all 32 NFL teams hold commercial rights in international markets. The NBA is increasingly looking international, and the Phoenix Suns played their first game in six years in China in October 2025. Arizona is part of that story too: the state’s public safety pension system helped finance the acquisition of England’s Ipswich Town, for example.
2. Going global takes time.
There is plenty of interest in taking American sports overseas. Basketball is now the second-most-played team sport in the UK after soccer. U.S. investment in European basketball is growing, and the NBA is looking at a new league in Europe.
But playing a game in another country is the end of a process, not the beginning. Teams can spend two years or more building relationships before playing in a new market. They need local partners, sponsors, media relationships and fans. Much of the interest is there, but the organizational side takes cultivation and engagement of a cross-section of political, industry, and community leaders in the leadup to a game or more permanent presence.
3. Athletics can help universities reach new audiences.
Athletics are a way to advance the priorities of the broader university. Sports can help universities such as ASU target prospective students, build its profile overseas and open doors for academic and research relationships. As ASU increasingly looks to grow globally, sports play an important role. That was visible in London this fall. ASU brought a travel party of roughly 300 for the football game against Kansas, to align with the opening of the ASU London campus which will serve an inaugural cohort of 300-320 students. The trip followed Sun Devil women’s soccer playing in Wrexham earlier in the year.
U.S. collegiate teams are already international at home, too. Of nearly 700 Sun Devil student-athletes, 109 come from 38 countries outside the United States. That makes athletics both a way to take ASU abroad and a way to bring the world to Arizona.
4. Competition for major sporting events is tough, but Arizona has real advantages.
More than 20 states now have dedicated funding mechanisms to help attract and host major sporting and entertainment events. Arizona does not. That matters as cities and states compete more aggressively for the economic impact and visibility these events bring.
But Arizona has real advantages. The weather and venues are obvious ones, as is proximity to destinations like Sedona and the Grand Canyon. As one participant put it, fans can “come for the Super Bowl and stay for Sedona.”
Another advantage is how well Arizona works together. The benefits spread well beyond the stadium, reaching hotels, restaurants, tourism destinations, and communities across the state. So all have an incentive to coordinate, and in Arizona, cities, venues, public safety agencies, tourism groups, and the private sector have a strong track record of coordinating around major events.
With the NBA All-Star Game coming to Phoenix and Arizona already looking at the next decade of major events, the opportunity is to build on those strengths while making sure the state has the tools to keep competing.
