The NFL is looking for new markets; Saudi Arabia is looking for new sports. So next year, some of the NFL’s biggest stars will play in Saudi Arabia, a country where football means soccer.

On March 21, Fanatics, which runs the league’s online merchandise shop, will produce a flag football event in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, that will feature former stars such as Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski as well as a host of current players. The event is a foothold for Fanatics: The Saudi sovereign wealth fund invested in the online licensed sports goods retailer in 2017, as did the Qatari sovereign wealth fund in 2022. Fanatics also sells sports memorabilia, and customers from the Middle East have been among its biggest buyers in recent years.

The NFL will not produce the event, but team owners are allowing some of their players to participate. Philadelphia Eagles running back Saquon Barkley, Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb and San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, among others, have agreed to take part.

Several NFL Owners Expected to Attend

Several NFL owners are also expected to attend the three-team, round-robin tournament, at which Fanatics is planning a halftime show. The teams will be led by three of the league’s best-known head coaches: Pete Carroll of the Las Vegas Raiders, Sean Payton of the Denver Broncos and Kyle Shanahan of the 49ers.

“It is just a great opportunity to expand the game globally,” said Brady, who is helping produce the event. “Sometimes, you have to get outside your comfort zone to create awareness. Soccer has done a great job of that, and we want to help” do that with football.

The event is the NFL’s first step toward potentially entering the Saudi market. The league has been expanding around the world at an increasing pace. It has been playing regular season games in North and South America and in Western Europe, and it is evaluating new markets such as the United Arab Emirates, Japan and other countries with little connection to football. It will not play a regular season game in these places unless football is played locally — it is a niche sport in Saudi Arabia — and there are significant commercial opportunities like media and sponsorship deals.

“We’re not going to go into a market unless we’re really committed for the long haul in terms of year-round engagement,” said Peter O’Reilly, the executive vice president at the NFL in charge of international expansion.

This season, the NFL will play seven regular games overseas. There was one last week in Sao Paulo. One game each in Dublin, Berlin and Madrid will be played for the first time, and three in London, which has hosted games for nearly two decades. Commissioner Roger Goodell has said the league intends to play as many as 16 international games in the coming years.

Flag Football Used to Generate Broader Interest

The NFL has been using flag football to generate broader interest in the game at home, particularly among women. The league has been encouraging states to make flag football an official high school sport. The National Collegiate Athletic Association is likely to vote on whether to certify it as an “emerging sport.” The NFL lobbied the International Olympic Committee to include flag football in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.

The league also wants to create professional flag football leagues for men and women and is interviewing two potential operators to run a league with six to eight teams, said Troy Vincent, the executive vice president of football operations. The owners may invest in individual franchises or the NFL may form “some kind of limited partnership” in the league, he said.

The NFL has also used flag football to teach the game to boys and girls overseas. Vincent wants the league to team up with current and former players like Kelvin Beachum and Larry Fitzgerald, who are forming their own business partnerships in the Middle East.

Soccer is by far the most popular sport in Saudi Arabia. But the government has been trying to diversify its economy by hosting boxing, soccer and tennis matches, as well as the world’s richest horse race, the Saudi Cup, which offers a $20 million purse. The Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia, the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, is the main backer of LIV Golf, a rival golf tour to the PGA.

“We are pleased to be playing our part in supporting flag football’s continued growth,” Turki al-Sheikh, who leads the Saudi government’s pro sports ventures, said in a statement. The tournament will be played during the Riyadh Season of sports and entertainment events, which runs roughly from October through March.

The five-on-five flag football tournament will be at the Kingdom Arena in Riyadh and shown by Fox Sports, and comedian Kevin Hart will host the broadcast.

—

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Ken Belson/Chang W. Lee
c. 2025 The New York Times Company