The NFL announced Friday that it will further expand its efforts in Africa with a talent identification camp in Nigeria, the fourth country on the continent to host league programming.
The three-day camp, to be held in Lagos this month, will host 21 prospects from 10 African countries to identify future participants in the NFL’s two international training programs, the NFL Academy in England and the International Player Pathway (IPP) program.
This camp follows initiatives hosted over the previous two years in Ghana and Kenya (2022) and Cape Town, South Africa (2023), as the NFL seeks to establish a fan base on the continent.
While Ghana (34.7 million), Kenya (54 million) and South Africa (59 million) all have sizable populations, they are dwarfed by Nigeria (229 million), the continent’s most populous country.
Which begs the question why Nigeria wasn’t the first African country chosen.
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Osi Umenyiora, a two-time Super Bowl champion and the NFL’s lead ambassador in Africa, said while Nigeria, the birthplace of his parents, ideally would have been their first stop on the continent, the league wanted to get its African programming in order first.
“Nigeria, for the most part, is going to be a big focal part of what the NFL is doing,” Umenyiora said. “So we wanted to make sure that when we got there that we had everything right and we were doing things the right way.”
On one hand, expansion is about finding a way to give people outside of the United States an opportunity that didn’t exist before: playing in the NFL. But it’s also about market expansion. As the NFL enters more television markets, Umenyiora says that Africa, whose historical economic woes can be traced back to colonization, can’t be ignored.
Nigeria and other African nations have seen economic growth in the past few years, and with the continent having the youngest population in the world, a burgeoning fan base is sitting right under the league’s nose. Give Nigerians and other Africans opportunities now, and they’ll become consumers later, much like Hollywood and music have crossed the globe.
“As the countries start to get more and more revenue, as they start to get younger, they start to get more technology, they’re going to start consuming more and more NFL as content,” Umenyiora said.
NFL games have been played in England, Germany, Mexico. The Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers will play the league’s first game in São Paulo on Sept. 6.
Umenyiora hopes the continent will host its own international game soon.
“The minute we have the infrastructure there that can host an NFL game, wherever that is, the minute we have that, they have to do it,” he said. “You can’t be a global sport, and you can’t go … all around the world and say ‘nah’ to Africa.”
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After the Nigeria camp, Umenyiora hopes to expand into Rwanda, Morocco, Egypt and Angola. But for now, the league’s efforts on the continent are starting to materialize.
According to the NFL, there are more than 135 players of African descent currently playing in the NFL, including Seattle Seahawks receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Cleveland Browns tight end David Njoku, who will participate in the Lagos camp.
Though the IPP program, which provides pro-level football training to world-class athletes, many of whom have never played football, is an international initiative, four of the 11 participants from 2024 were of African origin. Six Nigerian participants from the 2023 IPP class made NFL rosters that season.
The NFL also partners its 32 clubs with countries including Germany, Mexico and the United Kingdom as a part of its Global Markets Program, which is intended to increase exposure for the league across the globe. The Philadelphia Eagles (Ghana) and Cleveland Browns (Nigeria) are the only teams to partner with African nations.
As part of the Nigeria programming this month, the NFL will also host a flag football tournament for under-14 local school teams and the first women’s flag football workout.