NC State and Virginia prove college football cannot follow NFL’s international playbook

College football is not the NFL. It will never be the NFL. That’s okay. The sport is its own uniquely weird and beautiful thing. Remember that when so many are crying about what’s wrong with it. The ratings are in good shape too, so don’t fall for the “we’re letting this sport die” BS.

The only time not being the NFL becomes a problem for college football is when the stakeholders in the media and at conference offices insist they can follow the NFL playbook for growth. NC State and Virginia just learned the hard way that their game is not the premium export that an NFL contest is.

Last week, the schools, ESPN, and promoter Athlete Advantage, announced that the Wolfpack and the Cavaliers were not going to Brazil after all. Their August 29 game, originally scheduled to be played in Rio de Janeiro, will be moved to Charlottesville. 

All Athlete Advantage has said publicly is that the game cannot be played in Brazil. The issue wasn’t player safety or field condition. Rumor has it, a severe lack of ticket sales was a driving factor in the decision to move the game.

We’ll see how the Big 12 contest in London does, but at this point, all we can really point to for college football success internationally is Ireland. In August, Aviva Stadium will host the Aer Lingus College Football Classic for the fifth year in a row. The sixth matchup is already set for 2027.

Why is that the only game that seems to work? Why, in a time when the NFL is trying all kinds of things to grow American football’s international footprint, is the college game still almost exclusively a domestic business?

There are so many structural problems that get in the way. The NCAA is a confederacy by design — a collection of smaller units that rarely function as a monolith. There is no united front. 

Roger Goodell had to eat a lot of proverbial excrement in establishing the NFL’s international games. The league was in a position of strength though. An exclusive broadcast window for an NFL game has only grown in value. Maybe ESPN, Netflix, Amazon, and others hate putting football on at 9 a.m. ET on a Sunday, but they all love it when their service is the only option for NFL football, so they make it work. 

That’s not something college football can offer. Conferences and television networks compete with each other, so there’s no guarantee of a standalone window. And simply put, there’s way more inventory in college football to be spread around. ESPN alone has six networks to program (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ACC Network, and SEC Network). Fox has three (Fox, FS1, and Big Ten Network). Not to mention, NBC, Peacock, CBS, CBSSN, TNT, The CW, and USA will all air college football games this season. Where the NFL has scarcity, college football has abundance. That abundance makes it so any one individual game — especially one featuring two middling ACC teams — doesn’t have a ton of inherent value as a standalone window.

Exclusivity isn’t something only the NFL relies on. Major League Baseball’s visits to England, Japan, and other international destinations have happened at times when there is no other baseball to watch. 

MLB, the NBA, and the NHL have all been smart about international games. For two years in a row, when the Carolina Hurricanes had the most Finnish roster in the league, the team was sent to Finland to open the season. Who does Major League Baseball send to Japan? In the ’90s and early 2000s it was Ichiro Suzuki and the Seattle Mariners. Now, it’s the Los Angeles Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani. 

Japan has rewarded the league with both ticket sales and massive TV audiences. The NBA is counting on the same result next season when Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs go to France. 

So let’s circle back on the Ireland games here. Are Irish people buying those tickets? I’m sure some are, but that game is kept afloat more by sponsorship money. It’s like a bowl game. ESPN trusts that enough fans will be willing to pay to visit Ireland and go to the game. In the end though, ticket sales are less important than ad revenue. 

Aer Lingus pays for that one game as a major promotional event. The broadcast is a commercial for visiting Ireland. During the ad breaks, the company can showcase all of the deals it offers to get you there.

Did a similar sponsor step forward for the planned game in Brazil? Was one even available? Travel, like everything else, is crazy expensive right now. It’s hard to convince some Americans to travel internationally in 2026. Maybe a company like LATAM Brasil couldn’t justify paying a rate that made the endeavor worth the efforts of ESPN and Athlete Advantage.

College football’s growth is intertwined with what works for media partners. That’s true of every sport, but college sports face a very particular challenge. 

Why has the Premier League worked in the U.S.? People tune in and stadiums sell out when these clubs visit because of the star power. NBC’s TV package has created more American soccer fans, but it’s where some of the biggest sports stars in the world play. Celebrity plays a major role in bringing a lot of these fans to the table initially.

Nothing is more valuable to the media than star power, and when you leave the confines of the U.S., college football just doesn’t have big enough stars. Not even Arch Manning or Jeremiah Smith could sellout a stadium in Brazil. Brazil wasn’t getting Manning or Smith or the respective major brands they play for. We’re talking about an 8-5 NC State with a coach that half the fan base wants gone and a quarterback that people outside the state of North Carolina have to be told is good. 

Unfortunately, like the scientists in Jurassic Park, the decision makers involved with taking college football to Brazil were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should. 

Maybe there is a more extensive international future ahead for college football. Stop and think about this particular game though. So much had to go right that just wasn’t going to. NC State and Virginia was always going to be a tough sell in South America.