The National Football League is strengthening its international presence.

Following a major pivot in league regulations, teams can market in specific foreign countries for the first time ever.

Teams can now align with clubs in other countries on co-marketing pacts, promotional tours, merchandise, and sponsorships. Countries on the list include Mexico, Canada, Germany, the U.K., China, and Brazil, which already has 63.7 million NFL fans.

The league counts 190 million U.S. fans, but Chris Halpin, the NFL’s chief strategy officer, told The Athletic “our next 50 million fans will come from these international markets.”

As many as half of the league’s teams were expected to submit proposals on Thursday.

• The Kansas City Chiefs are interested in an alliance with an overseas soccer club — founder Lamar Hunt helped create MLS and owns a team. Chiefs president Mark Donovan says “they have contact names and networks.”
• The Denver Broncos are looking at Mexico, the country with the second-largest Broncos fan base outside of Denver. The team’s Facebook and Instagram have 394,000 followers from Mexico and 331,000 from Denver.

Country licenses will be granted in the coming months, with five-year terms starting Jan. 1.

Electronic Arts, known for its sports franchises, is investing billions of dollars into a mobile gaming market projected to reach $272 billion by 2030.

Mobile is the fastest-growing gaming category, making up more than half of the $175 billion global games business, per Newzoo.

EA’s recent acquisitions showcase a renewed prioritization of mobile gaming.

• It acquired Codemasters, the studio behind “F1 Mobile Racing,” in February for $1.2 billion.
• It purchased Glu Mobile, publisher of “MLB Tap Sports Baseball,” in April for $2.4 billion.
• Last week, it acquired “Golf Clash” maker Playdemic from Warner Bros. Games for $1.4 billion.

With new studios under its belt, EA is better positioned to compete with mobile giants.

“Genshin Impact,” a role-playing video game developed and published by Shanghai-based MiHoYo, became the fastest mobile title to reach $1 billion in player spending on the App Store and Google Play earlier this year, beating out Niantic’s “Pokémon GO.”

Zynga, the mobile game developer behind “Words with Friends,” has plans to build its own empire. Last month, it acquired mobile advertising platform Chartboost for $250 million and “Golf Rival” developer StarLark for $525 million in cash and stock.

Overall, consumers spent $1.7 billion per week on mobile games in the first half of 2021.

Lamar Jackson has established himself as one of the NFL’s biggest stars, and he’s also moonlighting as an agent. 

The Baltimore Ravens quarterback is representing himself in negotiations with his team on an extension to his rookie contract.

Star quarterbacks have been the beneficiaries of several recent, massive extensions.

• Last month, the Buffalo Bills committed to Josh Allen on a six-year, $258 million deal, with $150 million guaranteed.
• The Dallas Cowboys’ Dak Prescott locked in $126 million on his four-year, $160 million contract in March.
• Last year, Patrick Mahomes inked a 10-year deal with the Kansas City Chiefs worth $450 million with incentives that could bring it to $503 million. He’s guaranteed $140 million. 

In addition to more guaranteed money, star quarterbacks have been negotiating more control over their careers: Both Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers had contract clauses blocking the use of the “franchise tag,” which teams may employ to keep a player for an additional year.

NFL agents typically take 3% of the contracts they negotiate, the maximum allowed by current NFLPA regulations. Jackson is instead consulting with several advisors, including his mother, Felicia Jones.

The 24-year-old is in his fourth NFL season and already has an MVP award to his name. He is one of 17 NFL players not currently represented by an agent.

Days before it releases its latest Switch, Nintendo is disavowing reports that it has another console in the works.

In a perplexing back-and-forth, Bloomberg reported Wednesday that at least 11 game developers, including Zynga, received a developer kit from Nintendo to build visually enhanced 4K games, citing confirmations from unnamed employees at each company.

Nintendo quickly denied the report.

Zynga followed suit, telling Kotaku that “none of the developer kits Zynga has or is in receipt of are 4K developer kits.”

• Nintendo will release the latest version of its Switch console, which includes an OLED screen, on Oct. 8.
• The company had sought to include 4K-enabled chips from Nvidia in its upcoming Switch, but those plans fell apart due to the global chip shortage.
• The company’s revenue dipped 9.9% year-over-year in the second quarter to $2.94 billion, with Switch sales down 21.7% to 4.45 million units.

The latest versions of the Sony Playstation and Microsoft Xbox have 4K capabilities. Nintendo’s rumored 4K-enabled console would be expected in late 2022. 

Bloomberg has stood by its reporting, noting that it is likely that many more companies have received 4K developer kits from Nintendo than the 11 they have confirmed.