An international perspective on American sports - KIWI BLITZ's Blog

KIWI BLITZ's Blog

An international perspective on American sports

Posted on July 3, 2014 at 08:30 AM.

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A little bit about me. I'm a married, father of two great kids and am an absolute sports junkie.(mostly the NFL,NBA and FIFA) I'm from a country called New Zealand (the place where lord of the Rings was made) but currently live at the bottom East corner of Australia. I have been an Nfl and Nba fan since I was 8 years old (24 years ago lol). If i'm not watching Nfl or the NBA I'm playing it on my Xbox. Much to the dismay of my wife who for some reason hates sports. Go figure!.
I love sports games, its actually where I developed my love of American sports. I remember playing on a Commodore 64 playing terrible versions of what was supposed to be basketball, to games like Arch Rivals on my NES, to playing Madden on my Megadrive 2. For some reason I get really nostalgic on titles like NBA Street and NBA Jam.
Its amazing how far and how much the NBA's and NFL's influence on both Australia and New Zealand has come since the early 90's. Thanks largely in part to the Dream Team. You only have to look to the youth of today to see how much American sports culture is influencing them. Kids of all ages wearing their favourite teams Jersey or Hat (mainly NBA). Teenagers lining up on NBA2k title launch days first thing in the morning. Its even at the point now where more kids are playing Basketball rather than hanging out at local skate parks. I believe that now more than ever is the time for the NBA and NFL to capitalize on the popularity of their games at an international level. Note - international doesn't just mean the UK (thank you NFL international series). We would take a Pre Season game over here and sell it out, guaranteed.That would be a dream. The closest we have come is probably the Harlem Globetrotters, which was great, but lets face it its just not the same. The Nba is getting the closest to expanding the game globally by playing preseason games in Indonesia and Brazil, but still no Australia. Why? Australia has the highest number of NBA gametime subscribers in the world apparently, not to mention a growing number of NFL gamepass subs as well.
Australia's channel seven which is free to air nationally just secured a 5 year deal with the NFL which gets them 4 live games plus NFL network programming like a football life and Hard Knocks every week. I believe that NFL popularity in Australia is on the verge of blowing up and Mr Goodell needs to be ready to REALLY expand the greatest show on turf once and for all.

Until next write up, cheers from Down Under.