Heading into fall 2026, North American professional sports leagues are leveraging global games, strategic diplomacy, and international expansion to expand into international markets ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
From the Winter Olympic Games to the largest World Cup tournament in history, 2026 has been defined by global sporting events. Heading into the fall, many North American professional leagues will begin their 2026-2027 seasons, including football, basketball, and hockey. Championships will also be awarded in baseball and soccer.
As North American leagues grow into global brands, diplomacy has become the key to market access. How will these entities navigate this globalization in the upcoming season? Storylines worth following include the popularity of international games, growth in non-traditional markets, the effects of the 2026 Winter Olympics and the World Cup, expanding women’s leagues, and preparations for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.
American fans will once again turn their attention to the gridiron when the NFL season begins on September 9. Alongside them, more international fans than ever will be following along. This season’s international games feature nine competitions in seven countries: Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Mexico, Spain, and the UK. Kicking off the international slate on September 11 in Melbourne, the NFL will be fulfilling an MOU signed in January with the US Department of State.
Intended to “promote sports diplomacy and grow American football globally,” the MOU sets out to “enhance collaboration on international NFL games” while leveraging current and former athletes and coaches to lead flag football clinics abroad. Additionally, the league has pledged its support to public diplomacy programming at US embassies and consulates, part of a strategy of increasing global fandom leading up to LA28, where flag football will make its Olympic debut.
Just before the NFL season, the first Olympic quotas for flag football were allocated at the 2026 IFAF Flag Football World Championships in Düsseldorf, Germany. From August 13-16, the Italian men, the Mexican women, and both Canadian teams punched their tickets to Los Angeles. The remaining three team spots in each tournament will be decided in an Olympic Qualifier Series with competing teams drawn from a field of IFAF continental champions in 2027. With NFL and Department of State sports programming already reaching as far abroad as Hong Kong, awareness of the game is now translating into fandom and participation across many non-traditional markets.
This NFL season, fans interested in the game’s global influence should watch for how international games create lasting demand in host countries. They should also watch the performance of football national teams in Europe and East Asia - places where NFL-State Department programming has been most focused - during Olympic qualifiers.
The NBA has been at the vanguard of American sports diplomacy since the 1990s. In addition to over 90 international preseason games and 50 international regular season games, the NBA is a long-time partner of the State Department’s Sports Envoy and exchange programs. With the popularity of international superstars such as Yao Ming in the 2000s and Victor Wembanyama today, the NBA enjoys considerable influence from Beijing to Paris.
Two preseason games in Macau between the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks in October will be an important step for the NBA’s return to mainland China. After a 2019 tweet from then Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey in support of pro-democracy proteste rs in Hong Kong, the league was deplatformed across China. The fallout resulted in the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in broadcast and sponsorship revenues. Now, after restructuring its Chinese offices and several years of delicate corporate posturing, the league hopes that the door is opening to a full return in the near future.
This season will also be critical for the league’s international projects, including NBA Africa. NBA Africa oversees the Basketball Africa League (BAL), which concluded its sixth season in May. Despite the league’s youth, it has already become a fixture in African sports, generating more than 722 million views across its social channels in 2026 and contributing 250 million USD to the continent’s GDP between 2021-2025. In May, the league held the BAL Innovation Summit in Kigali, Rwanda, in which stakeholders discussed evolving the existing tournament-based qualification model into a permanent franchise-based model. With speculation that teams could sell in the 50-75 million USD range, how the BAL courts potential investors will become a leading storyline in 2026-27.
On the European side, excitement for the proposed NBA Europe league continues to grow. European sensations such as Victor Wembanyama, who will headline a January 14 regular- season matchup in Paris, have become increasingly dominant in the NBA. This trend has accelerated the demand for a European league, now expected to play its inaugural season in Fall 2027. The league will feature 16 teams: 12 permanent franchises and four annual qualifiers. Final bids for the 12 permanent franchises were made in June, with team announcements expected later this year. Reports suggest several bids were made in the 500 million to 1 billion USD range.
Finally, the WNBA will crown a champion in October. In its 30th season, the women’s league expanded to Canada by adding the Toronto Tempo. Despite the Tempo’s lackluster inaugural record, the expansion represents the WNBA’s growing international popularity. Bolstered by over 50 foreign-born players representing the league, the WNBA is aiming to host its first international game in the 2027 season. As players like Paige Bueckers, Caitlin Clark, and A’ja Wilson become household names, fans should expect this new generation of stars to extend the league’s influence well beyond North America.
While the NHL evaluates new expansion markets in the American South, league executives in New York City are looking across the Atlantic for additional fan engagement. In March, the NHL and the NHL Players’ Association announced plans for a long-term growth strategy in Germany. Having hosted some 20 preseason and exhibition games there, the league will host two regular-season matchups in mid-December headlined by German star Tim Stützle.
Beyond Europe, the league is stepping up efforts to grow the game in less traditional markets. In early August, the inaugural India Hockey 360 Festival in Chandigarh brought North American hockey leadership overseas to lead player development and coaching clinics. With support from the NHL, the Vancouver Canucks, and Bauer (a leading ice hockey equipment manufacturer), the outreach signals the recognition of an untapped market tethered to an extensive Indian diaspora in Canada and the US.
Despite the US State Department never having partnered with the NHL, the league’s steady international growth may ultimately necessitate it. The opportunity to leverage hockey for diplomacy may also come from the momentum of the women’s game. Though few professional men’s hockey players have served as State Department Sports Envoys, top stars on the women’s side, including retired Olympian Julie Chu, Hall of Famer Angela Ruggiero, and 2026 Olympic team captain Hilary Knight have led past exchanges.
US women’s hockey is riding a wave of popularity generated by a dramatic gold medal victory at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Along with the early successes of the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), top US women’s hockey players now have an avenue to leverage their international experiences into global engagement. After all, before the PWHL’s inaugural season in 2024, many of these professionals competed and trained internationally out of necessity.
Hockey fans should watch for the NHL to continue its slow and steady approach toward international outreach with a spotlight on Germany. Untapped global markets represented by strong diasporas in North America may also be a source for new fans. Hockey fans should also track the rapidly growing women’s professional game and its representation in future sports diplomacy programs.
Baseball has been an effective tool for American diplomacy, particularly in the Caribbean and in Latin America. Notably, the MLB’s Tampa Bay Rays played an exhibition game in Havana, Cuba, in March of 2016 to coincide with the first presidential visit to the island in 88 years. Hall of Famers such as Cal Ripken Jr. have represented the US Department of State globally, and this spring, the World Baseball Classic once again reminded fans of the sport’s impact in countries like the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. This season, the MLB’s “World Tour” included a two-game series in Mexico City between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Diego Padres.
With over a quarter of currently rostered players being born outside of North America, the MLB rates as one of the most internationally connected leagues, alongside the NBA. In 2025, the league catered to an intense fandom in Japan by bringing the World Tour to the Tokyo Dome, where the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs showed off Japanese superstars.
Unique to the MLB, the Commissioner’s Ambassador Program recognizes the league’s international appeal. It features a roster of 12 former players who promote the MLB brand at major events, including 13-time MLB All-Star Ken Griffey Jr., who was named the 2026 World Baseball Classic Global Ambassador. Prior to the World Baseball Classic, Griffey held exclusive interviews with participants while also visiting Nicaragua to shoot promotional content with their national team. “To get the chance to lock in and share how all of these different countries connect with our great game is an opportunity I’m truly excited about,” he said.
The MLB’s global programming will be especially helpful towards generating excitement for baseball’s return to the Olympics in 2028. Though baseball has appeared at the Summer Games sporadically, it has never featured actively rostered players on MLB clubs. Both the LA28 Organizing Committee and the league feel confident that players will be able to participate in two years, but making it a reality hinges on the ratification of a new collective bargaining agreement with the MLB Players’ Association.
As of late August, it seems unlikely that a new agreement will be signed before disruptions to the 2027 season become inevitable. A June poll of 101 anonymous MLB players showed that 80 believe that a lockout will occur in the offseason, with the major impasse being negotiations over a league-proposed salary cap and floor. Should an agreement not be reached, fans should expect MLB stars to play temporarily for international clubs. The Nippon Professional Baseball league in Japan and the Korea Baseball Organization are likely destinations for top talent in the event of a prolonged stoppage.
Both Major League Soccer (MLS) and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) will complete their seasons in November after pausing league play during the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Fans of both leagues will be eager to see whether they can sustain the attention generated by the World Cup, or if American soccer will again recede behind the “Big Four” of football, basketball, baseball, and hockey.
Major changes to the MLS schedule are coming in 2027 to align competition schedules with global soccer. An abbreviated February to May transitional season will give way to the first summer-to-spring schedule in MLS history. The new schedule, starting that July, will align the league’s transfer window with those of top international leagues. It will also move the MLS Cup Playoffs away from an already saturated fall sports calendar. These changes are essential if the MLS plans to sustain the momentum it gained from the World Cup, including an immediate 62 percent rise in ticket sales and a 50 percent increase in television ratings in late July.
The NWSL, on the other hand, will prepare for its top players to compete in the 2027 Women’s World Cup in Brazil. Having experienced its own spike in digital engagement from the men’s World Cup in North America, the league hopes that a successful 2027 tournament will produce a multiplier effect for the women’s soccer fandom. Represented by a US Women’s National Team ranked second in the world, American fans hope that a repeat of their 2019 performance will lead to further growth on the women’s club side.
Finally, the US Soccer Federation will be leveraging this summer’s World Cup to expand its footprint across America. Though the work of hosting the tournament itself is finished, the Soccer Forward Foundation will have just begun its work as US Soccer’s World Cup legacy initiative. The foundation will be assessed in its ability to deliver impactful grassroots programming leading up to the US-hosted 2028 Olympic Games and 2031 Women’s World Cup.
