Sports Editors John Drury and Abyan Memon examine how international expansion is reshaping sports fandom, with Formula 1 offering a glimpse into the future of global viewing.
The National Football League (NFL) is set to host a league-record nine international fixtures during the 2026 season. Spanning four continents and seven countries, the ambitious expansion could witness up to half of the league’s teams feature in an overseas match.
Whilst the NFL leads the American sports leagues engineering a regular season outside domestic borders, its peers are following suit. The National Basketball Association (NBA) continues its venture into Europe with a slate of continental fixtures scheduled over the coming year.
Yet, physical migration is not the only blueprint for global dominance. Others have cultivated international devotion almost exclusively through digital distribution. This strategy is evidenced by the Premier League, which aggressively exported the broadcasting rights of its domestic matches to transform local English clubs into global institutions.
True global sports (those operating naturally across multiple time zones), differ fundamentally from the American startups. Rather than managing high-frequency, weekly domestic matchups, organisations such as Formula 1, the Olympic Games, FIFA, the ICC World Cup, and tennis’s Grand Slams operate on an itinerant, event-based schedule.
The Trade-Off
Centralising geographical growth within a traditionally domestic framework is entirely different from being born global. While overseas expansion inevitably consumes a fanbase, it frequently alienates those left behind.
Among the loudest critics of the NFL’s international takeover are the players and coaches themselves. Annually, the release of the league calendar triggers scrutiny over travel distances and recovery periods. Writing on the social media platform X, the former defensive end J.J. Watt reflected a growing consensus among professionals, suggesting that international journeys rapidly morph into a logistical burden once fatigue surpasses the excitement of playing abroad.
While cross-continental travel does not directly exhaust the spectator, the threat of diminished team performance certainly dampens enthusiasm. This is compounded by the irritation of antisocial kick-off times. In a Reddit thread discussing whether American audiences truly resent international games, one domestic supporter lamented:
“I love football, but 14 plus hours of it on a Sunday are too much.”
The sentiment is mirrored by traditionalists across the Atlantic, with one British fan noting:
“I know as a fact that if my football team had to play a league match in the States or any other country, I’d be pissed too.”
The Formula 1 Story
In contrast to the NFL’s attempt to create an international schedule onto a domestic system, the global reach of Formula 1 is a product of its fans. Since its inauguration in 1950, the world championship has visited 34 different countries, fostering a highly adaptable, nocturnal fanbase.
In 2025, the Las Vegas Grand Prix was brought forward by two hours to anchor an 20:00 local start time. A Sky Sports article stated the decision was made ‘for fans to explore the destination and continue to engage with more fans across the US’. Yet, while the twilight slot benefited the local gate, it inflicted a brutally early alarm on European audiences. For the devoted F1 purist, subverting one’s circadian rhythm is simply the price of admission. One American enthusiast described the weekly routine of ‘torturing’ his sleep schedule just to follow the European leg of the season, a sacrifice instantly recognisable to motorsport fans worldwide.
These temporal shifting patterns act as filters, dividing casual observers or devoted disciples. These fans encounter different time zones acting as a filter, for example, a casual fan’s engagement is conditional; they might watch a race if it falls comfortably into a Sunday afternoon. Conversely, the devoted follower thinks nothing of waking up at 03:00 to watch a wet session in Suzuka. This shared hardship creates an intense, borderless camaraderie that purely domestic sports, bound by regional geography, rarely replicate.
With the modern rise in technology use, there has been a sharp rise in asynchronous viewing, providing a lifeline for casual fans to watch replays and highlights. However, several issues have surfaced such as spoilers, condensed content, and content creators. Spoilers create minefields of notifications, Instagram stories, or X posts which can ruin a race before a fan has sat down with a morning coffee.
To mitigate this, Formula 1’s official digital channel produce seven-minute highlights which routinely generate millions of views within hours of the chequered flag. A sophisticated ecosystem of independent content creators, podcasters, and TikTokers has emerged to fill the void. For the fan who missed the live broadcast, these digital architects can distill two hours of summaries, team radio, and ‘memes’ in a fraction of the time.
The Appeal of a Live Event
Why, then, do millions continue to reject the convenience of a condensed replay in favour of an inconvenient live broadcast? The answer lies in behavioural psychology.
The phenomenon is best explained by the concept of ‘collective conscience’, coined by sociologist Émile Durkheim, describing the feeling of belonging to something larger than yourself in a shared event. The primary appeal of live sport is the unpredictability; the outcome of the event is actively being written in real time, whereas to watch a replay is to consume history.
This is further amplified by the modern ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) driven by the modern technology of notifications and ubiquitous group chats. The value of the live experience has skyrocketed. Research from MKTG indicates that live viewing triggers significantly higher physiological stimulation than a delayed broadcast, even when the viewer remains entirely ignorant of the final score. The subconscious awareness that an event is unfolding in real-time fundamentally alters the individual’s neurological response.
Future Trajectory
As long as a global expansion continues to favour the NFL’s corporate management, it looks unlikely that the brakes will be pressed anytime soon. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has been clear on his position regarding future expansion, and an overseas team, schedule changes to accommodate international games, and a Super Bowl played overseas all appear to be on his radar.
Wireless communication opened the doors for sports fandom to become an activity and an identity for every regional household, and perhaps development of further technology, such as supersonic travel, will allow entire games to be transported across long distances, overcoming the obstacle of time zones and bringing certain sports fandoms to even more people.
Perhaps the time zone issue is not one of inconvenient times, but of change. Some will benefit from a change, while others will not. In the Reddit thread asking, “Do Americans really hate international games?”, one user stated, “I am a morning person (…) having football on at 9:00 a.m. is amazing to me,” while another said, “I love the games, it gives me a short flight to watch an NFL game.”
An additional user commented on their experience as a football fan from Hawaii: “Games kicked off at 6:30 am, but you were all done and could go about your day by like 3pm.” Additionally, in another Reddit thread on the same topic, a user highlighted the positives of getting to spend an entire day watching football, while their “(…) girlfriend gets to wonder if the state of modern dating is really as bad as all her single girlfriends say. Win-win.”
About the authors
