Latino audience is key for NFL growth in the U.S. and abroad

Earlier this month a well-known musician showed up at a Kansas City Chiefs game as the National Football League continues its bid to reach a new audience.

But this time it wasn’t Taylor Swift cheering on Travis Kelce — as the pop star has done at Kansas City games, leading to a boost in viewership.

It was Puerto Rican rapper Daddy Yankee, known for hits like “Gasolina” and “Rompe.” He attended a Monday Night Football game in Arrowhead Stadium and spent time with running back Isiah Pacheco of the Chiefs. Pacheco, who is of Puerto Rican descent, earlier let Daddy Yankee try on his two Super Bowl rings. 

The moment came as part of the NFL’s “Por La Cultura” campaign, which is in its fourth year and is a key element of the the league’s effort to grow its Latino and Spanish-speaking audiences. 

The NFL is known for its explosive ratings and is one of the most dominant sports when it comes to viewership on both traditional TV and streaming. A report from Nielsen earlier this week showed football drove ratings in September.

However, the league is still itching for further growth, both globally and within the U.S. A key aspect to that expansion is Hispanic viewership, league and media officials told CNBC.

“I think when you have a successful product you’re a little bit bound to your success, right? I mean, there’s very little growth that [the NFL] can actually achieve within the regular American U.S. [English]-speaking population,” said Olek Loewenstein, global president of sports at TelevisaUnivision.

He noted that the Hispanic population “is one of the largest, if not the largest demographic, that’s growing and younger in the U.S.”

Marissa Solis, senior vice president of global brand and consumer marketing at the NFL, said she joined the league three years ago to “get momentum behind our growth audiences.” For the NFL, she said this means three groups: viewers 35 and younger, of which Solis notes a majority are Latino; women; and Latinos.

“It’s mathematically impossible for the league to grow without Latinos,” Solis said. “This audience is critical for our growth. And it’s critical for global growth, because there’s so much cross-border connection and pride, and the fandom crosses borders.”

When it comes to sports in the U.S., Hispanic audiences favor soccer, followed by baseball and boxing, said Loewenstein. The NFL is still working to build its brand in the global market, which is dominated by soccer and other sports.

“I do think the NFL is one of the sports that’s prime to grow and explode among Hispanics,” Loewenstein said.

At the start of the season, the NFL expanded its reach to non-Spanish-speaking Latino audiences, hosting a game in Brazil for the first time as it brings more matchups to international locations. The game was streamed exclusively on Comcast’s Peacock and was the second-most watched live event for the streaming platform after a NFL postseason game earlier this year.

Solis said about 31 million Latinos in the U.S. considered themselves NFL fans four years ago, when the Por La Cultura effort began, and that has since increased to 40 million.

While the campaign has honed in on themes such as how the Latino community expresses their fandom and the stories of players like Pacheco and New England Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez, Solis said expanding broadcasts into Spanish language has been a big help.

The NFL has more than 75 broadcasts in Spanish language available this season, the league said.

“All of those efforts have been leading to a massive growth in fandom,” she said.

Paramount Global’s CBS aired this year’s Super Bowl between the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs, but since the network doesn’t have a Spanish counterpart, it licensed those rights in the U.S. and Mexico to TelevisaUnivision.

The Super Bowl on TelevisaUnivision’s over-the-air broadcast network broke records, the company said, averaging 2.3 million viewers across all of its platforms, the largest audience for the Spanish language broadcast of a Super Bowl.

Still, it was a small contribution to the total 123.4 million viewers of the 2024 Super Bowl.

“Seventy percent of the people that had watched the Super Bowl had not watched any other playoff games that year,” TelevisaUnivision’s Lowenstein said.

The first Super Bowl that aired in Spanish was in 2015 on cable TV network Fox Deportes. In 2022, NBCUniversal’s Telemundo aired the Super Bowl for the first time on an over-the-air broadcast network in Spanish.

While having a Super Bowl broadcast in Spanish isn’t a component of the NFL’s media rights deals, it has become a significant priority as the NFL looks to expand availability, according to the league.

That was underscored earlier this week when Fox Deportes and Telemundo announced both networks would air the Super Bowl in February. The two networks will “provide the broadest Spanish-language distribution” of the Super Bowl in the U.S. in history, and the networks will produce separate broadcasts.

Since the 2022 Super Bowl broadcast, Telemundo has experienced “significant growth in our viewership” of the NFL, said Joaquin Duro, executive vice president of sports at NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises.

Telemundo broadcasts each “Sunday Night Football” game in Spanish on both TV and Peacock. He noted that while the core audience still watches on traditional TV, streaming is becoming increasingly important. “This is helping us attract younger, more tech-savvy viewers,” Duro said.

Like the NFL, Telemundo Deportes highlights the stories of Hispanic players. It has also expanded its coverage around NFL events with an on-site presence at the games and a bigger lineup of interviews, Duro added.

“I love the change, the evolution, the expansion of the NFL,” said Rolando Cantú, a former NFL player and analyst on “TNF en Espanol” and Telemundo Deportes’ broadcast of “Sunday Night Football.”

Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC.