Having seen incredible growth of the National Football League (NFL) in the UK we caught up with John MacCarter, the Vice President, Finance, and Analytics of the New York Jets. John has risen up the ranks with the Jets and now holds responsibility for the Jets expansion into the UK market.
How did you first get involved in the sport industry?
I was working in corporate finance at a video game company. So, another entertainment company in New York City doing corporate finance at the time. I grew up loving the NFL and college football and saw a position at the New York Jets in finance this is way back in 2010.
I took a shot you know, put myself in the mix for the interview and got the job. Ever since then that was 2010 and that was purely a finance job, but over the years, I picked up a couple other things along the way including strategy and now international strategy. It’s a great place to work and I’ve been learning the whole way.
How would you describe your role?
I help to guide the strategy for the UK as well as internationally. That extends to domestic strategy of the New York Jets, all the financial planning and analysis for the for the Jets. I work with my team to see what the budgets we need to set for next year and then communicate all that to the to the president and the ownership of the team. In terms of the financial health of the company, and then also business analytics, which is a growing and necessary piece of the business to help us understand the fans and drive our drive their enjoyment through data.
Can you describe the NFL’s Global Markets Program, and the process by which the Jets were awarded the UK as a market?
We wanted the UK so we were so excited when the league announced the program to extend your marketing rights in league circles to any territory you wanted.
The NFL had a list that included the UK. It wasn’t a closed list, so you could take any territory, but we felt the UK made so much sense for the New York Jets. One reason is there is already an established NFL investment in the UK.
The NFL had played 28 games in London before we made our bid. So, UK fans had some experience with the NFL. Also, there’s a shared culture and connection between New York and London and that’s cultural and economic. It’s actually not that far of a flight either when you think about it.
We felt that there was a strong synergy between the two. It’s a mature sports market. There are commercial opportunities like sponsorship too to help us and drive our business results. On top of that, it’s a shared language aside from all the words here and there that we don’t share, but that was a blessing too, because we have some fun with it on our social channels.
Did the Jets have to fight for the UK territory considering how appealing it seems?
Yes, it was a bidding process. We had to submit a bid it and it was something we’ve never done before. But think of it like, if you’re hosting the Olympics or something, that’s how we thought of it.
That’s the level of effort that we put into it. We wanted to say these are the reasons why we believe the Jets and the UK are a great match.
The Jacksonville Jaguars are arguably the most familiar to UK fans, presumably you think the market is big enough to make it still viable for the Jets?
Definitely, yes. They’ve done some amazing work and they’ve been working on it for a long time. I think the great thing about what they’re doing is they’re helping to lay the groundwork for NFL fandom in general.
The way things have developed in sports around the globe is that you can access games for any team at any time through these subscription services. We feel that we can introduce people to the Jets. As we’re in the AFC (American Football Conference), we play the Jaguars anyway. Not every year, but you know more often than not so we’re getting exposure to them. They’re doing a great job but there’s millions of fans who are sort of up for grabs that we feel that there’s plenty to go around.
What do you think the Jets can achieve in the UK market?
We think the sky’s the limit. It’s so fun working on the project because we’re starting from almost nothing aside from the fact we played in London in 2015 and 2021. We know from data that there’s a strong following relative to other countries in our domestic socials, but we’re just getting started.
We’ve created our own UK specific socials, and we have a strong belief that we shouldn’t just copy and paste our US content. We’ve got a British voice that I think is working. So, we include little cultural differences, like I mentioned, memes that may mean something more in the UK rather than the US and matching that with our players. We’ve grown terrifically there and we’ve succeeded on the business side too. We’ve signed up five announced sponsors with more on the way. What we’re doing is working.
With traditional UK sports the team you support is often passed down generations and ingrained however with NFL being an emerging sport in the UK how much of an immense opportunity is this?
What we found and what we believe is that there are millions of fans in the UK and all they need is that first touch point with the Jets and they could be fans for life.
We strive to create this really engaging content. And I want to say, humbly, that we’re succeeding because we are partnering with other properties that are known and very well established in the UK. So, if you scroll through our social channels, you’ll see we’re doing content collaborations with multiple Premier League clubs.
We do content with PDC (Professional Darts Corporation) and we’re just saying ‘anyone who’s interested in sport let’s get in front of them.’ And beyond that it’s also starting with youth.
What’s the end goal with the Jets in the UK?
It’s engaging as many fans as we can and growing our sport. What’s good for the Jets is good for the NFL. The NFL have identified it as a strategic priority, this internationalisation.
If you look back at what the Premier League clubs started doing really in the nineties with all the international expansion to become global brands. That’s what we want to be. You know, we know we have a very strong brand in New York and the United States as well, but how do we become a global brand? The UK is a huge piece of that.
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John MacCarter, Vice President, Finance & Analytics.
