Roxane Coche Comments on the NFL’s Quest to Bring American Football to Europe

Roxane Coche, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Sports Journalism and Communication associate director and Media Production, Management, and Technology assistant professor, is featured in “Why the NFL Hasn’t Won Over Europe… Yet” a podcast on Cheddar News posted on Oct. 15

The podcast chronicles the NFL’s decades-long history of trying to bring American football to Europe and the attempt to win over the hearts of European sports fans. One option they pursued included condensing the league to one country. Germany was chosen because that is where the sport received the most support.

“There are a lot of American military bases in Germany, and I think perhaps some people had that background,” said Coche.

Another tactic taken by the NFL was to bring a slice of American life to the games. According to Coche, “There where elephants and the cheerleaders and it almost became kind of like a theme park.”

When asked if NFL Europe could have worked today, Coche responded, “It could probably work a little bit better today. I think there’s almost a part of me that thinks it might have been stopped a little early.”

Posted: October 15, 2021
Category: College News
Tagged as: Roxane Coche, Sports Journalism