Sept. 30 (Bloomberg) -- The San Francisco 49ers football team will play before their biggest crowd this weekend in 14 years -- in Mexico City.
The National Football League is using the game between the 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals to try to add to its 20 million fans in Mexico, the largest group for any country after the U.S. The NFL says the Oct. 2 game will draw 85,000 to Azteca Stadium for its first-ever regular-season game outside the U.S.
``We have a great fan base in Mexico and it's been growing dramatically over the last several years,'' said NFL Chief Operating Officer Roger Goodell.
Football is the second-most popular sport in Mexico, trailing only soccer, said Ricardo Perez, director of sports and special events for Grupo Televisa SA, world's largest Spanish- language media company. Perez said NFL games on Televisa, which is co-sponsoring the 49ers-Cardinals match, draw ratings as much as 40 percent higher than baseball.
Sales of NFL caps, jackets and other merchandise in Mexico bring in about $15 million a year, according to the league.
Companies scoop up advertising time during NFL games on Televisa because the audience is made up of ``high-income'' earners, said Perez, 43. He declined to give Televisa's ad prices or revenue from NFL games.
Those wealthy fans include Fernando Villarreal, a 51-year- old independent business consultant based in Monterrey. Villarreal travels several times a year to the U.S. to watch his favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys.
`Nightmare'
On his last trip Sept. 19, Villarreal went back and forth to Dallas in the same day to watch the Cowboys play the Washington Redskins. The Cowboys, the most popular team in Mexico, let a 13- 0 lead slip away in the final four minutes of the game and lost 14-13.
``It was the season opener and it was a beautiful night,'' Villarreal, who attended the Cowboys' three Super Bowl victories in the 1990s, said in a telephone interview from Monterrey. ``And then it turned into a nightmare.''
Televisa began airing games in the late 1960s, planting the seeds for the popularity of football in Mexico, Perez said. Games can now be seen on Mexico's television networks as well as cable TV networks ESPN Inc., owned by Walt Disney Co., Fox Sports Networks LLC, owned by News Corp., and Sky Mexico, Televisa's satellite television unit.
Both ESPN and Fox Sports are part of Empresas Cablevision SA's basic cable package in Mexico, which costs 260 pesos ($24) a month.
Football or Baseball
Mexicans prefer football over baseball even though more of them play professional baseball than football. Eighteen Mexicans started the 2005 baseball season on Major League teams. Only one Mexican -- 361-pound (164 kilograms) Rolando Cantu -- plays in the NFL. He is an offensive lineman for the Cardinals who never has played in a regular season game.
``The NFL has done its homework in Mexico,'' Perez said. ``The challenge now is to spread the game to the masses.''
The NFL converted Joshua Olivo, a 14-year-old student in Mexico City, from a soccer fan to a football fan by inviting him to join about 100,000 other Mexican kids in a flag football league set up in 1998 by the NFL. Olivo said he knew nothing about football when he joined the league three years ago.
``I liked soccer more,'' said Olivo as he threw a football to his teammates at his school's practice field this week. ``When they invited me to play, I got interested and now I like football better.''
First Fans
Olivo said he plans to be one of the first of the 85,000 people to file into Azteca Stadium for the Sunday night game.
While the crowd would be the biggest the 49ers have drawn in 14 years, it would be smaller than the crowd of 112,376 that packed into Azteca to watch the Cowboys play a pre-season game in 1994.
Pre-season games in Mexico City in 1997 and 1998 also drew over 100,000. NFL and Televisa officials said they removed the lowest 10 rows of seats from the stadium for this weekend's game so that spectators can see over the players standing on the sidelines.
The 49ers and Cardinals have a combined record this year of one win and five losses. The 49ers, which won five Super Bowls from 1981 to 1995, had the worst record in the NFL last year with two wins and 14 losses.
The Cardinals, which will be considered the home team for the game at Azteca, haven't had a winning season since 1998.
``If this game fills Azteca Stadium with these two teams, then it's a true measure that people indeed love NFL football in Mexico,'' said Jose Manuel Basave, who writes a football sports column for El Norte newspaper in Monterrey.
The National Football League is using the game between the 49ers and the Arizona Cardinals to try to add to its 20 million fans in Mexico, the largest group for any country after the U.S. The NFL says the Oct. 2 game will draw 85,000 to Azteca Stadium for its first-ever regular-season game outside the U.S.
``We have a great fan base in Mexico and it's been growing dramatically over the last several years,'' said NFL Chief Operating Officer Roger Goodell.
Football is the second-most popular sport in Mexico, trailing only soccer, said Ricardo Perez, director of sports and special events for Grupo Televisa SA, world's largest Spanish- language media company. Perez said NFL games on Televisa, which is co-sponsoring the 49ers-Cardinals match, draw ratings as much as 40 percent higher than baseball.
Sales of NFL caps, jackets and other merchandise in Mexico bring in about $15 million a year, according to the league.
Companies scoop up advertising time during NFL games on Televisa because the audience is made up of ``high-income'' earners, said Perez, 43. He declined to give Televisa's ad prices or revenue from NFL games.
Those wealthy fans include Fernando Villarreal, a 51-year- old independent business consultant based in Monterrey. Villarreal travels several times a year to the U.S. to watch his favorite team, the Dallas Cowboys.
`Nightmare'
On his last trip Sept. 19, Villarreal went back and forth to Dallas in the same day to watch the Cowboys play the Washington Redskins. The Cowboys, the most popular team in Mexico, let a 13- 0 lead slip away in the final four minutes of the game and lost 14-13.
``It was the season opener and it was a beautiful night,'' Villarreal, who attended the Cowboys' three Super Bowl victories in the 1990s, said in a telephone interview from Monterrey. ``And then it turned into a nightmare.''
Televisa began airing games in the late 1960s, planting the seeds for the popularity of football in Mexico, Perez said. Games can now be seen on Mexico's television networks as well as cable TV networks ESPN Inc., owned by Walt Disney Co., Fox Sports Networks LLC, owned by News Corp., and Sky Mexico, Televisa's satellite television unit.
Both ESPN and Fox Sports are part of Empresas Cablevision SA's basic cable package in Mexico, which costs 260 pesos ($24) a month.
Football or Baseball
Mexicans prefer football over baseball even though more of them play professional baseball than football. Eighteen Mexicans started the 2005 baseball season on Major League teams. Only one Mexican -- 361-pound (164 kilograms) Rolando Cantu -- plays in the NFL. He is an offensive lineman for the Cardinals who never has played in a regular season game.
``The NFL has done its homework in Mexico,'' Perez said. ``The challenge now is to spread the game to the masses.''
The NFL converted Joshua Olivo, a 14-year-old student in Mexico City, from a soccer fan to a football fan by inviting him to join about 100,000 other Mexican kids in a flag football league set up in 1998 by the NFL. Olivo said he knew nothing about football when he joined the league three years ago.
``I liked soccer more,'' said Olivo as he threw a football to his teammates at his school's practice field this week. ``When they invited me to play, I got interested and now I like football better.''
First Fans
Olivo said he plans to be one of the first of the 85,000 people to file into Azteca Stadium for the Sunday night game.
While the crowd would be the biggest the 49ers have drawn in 14 years, it would be smaller than the crowd of 112,376 that packed into Azteca to watch the Cowboys play a pre-season game in 1994.
Pre-season games in Mexico City in 1997 and 1998 also drew over 100,000. NFL and Televisa officials said they removed the lowest 10 rows of seats from the stadium for this weekend's game so that spectators can see over the players standing on the sidelines.
The 49ers and Cardinals have a combined record this year of one win and five losses. The 49ers, which won five Super Bowls from 1981 to 1995, had the worst record in the NFL last year with two wins and 14 losses.
The Cardinals, which will be considered the home team for the game at Azteca, haven't had a winning season since 1998.
``If this game fills Azteca Stadium with these two teams, then it's a true measure that people indeed love NFL football in Mexico,'' said Jose Manuel Basave, who writes a football sports column for El Norte newspaper in Monterrey.
