MEXICO A NEW TEST FOR NFL DESPITE A SOLID BASE, WINNING FANS NOT EASY.

Byline: Billy Witz Staff Writer

MEXICO CITY - To many of the 20,000 fans in the Estadio Olimpico Universitario on Wednesday night, it didn't seem to matter that they sat on concrete benches, that they were watching two middling first-division clubs, or that rain, cups of beer and flares intermittently came from the skies above. This was their Pumas on the field, and judging by their flag-waving and raucous, raunchy chants, they were ready for some futbol.

What the NFL wants to know is, are these same fans ready for some football.

When the Cardinals and the 49ers play at Estadio Azteca on Sunday night, it will be the first regular-season game played outside the United States in the NFL's 86-year history.

The NFL will be watching to see how it is received - from fans, from viewers both at home and in Mexico, from sponsors and from the teams - as it considers forays into Canada, Europe, Japan and China.

``We want to see how this works, what the impact is on our business and our fan base ... and then base decisions on that experience,'' NFL chief operating officer Roger Goodell said.

As business, politics and pop culture become more global, so too has the world of sports, and the race for expansion - and jersey sales, TV rights and sponsorship deals - is on.

In recent years, European soccer giants Real Madrid and Manchester United have made tours to the emerging markets of the United States and Asia, and Major League Baseball has played regular-season games in Japan and is the force behind a world baseball tournament. The NBA has used the Olympics and its foreign stars, such as China's Yao Ming and Argentina's Manu Ginobli, to spread interest in its game overseas. The NHL has done the same, if more modestly.

The NFL, with its strictly American history and the often prohibitive expense of its sport, has some formidable hurdles.

``(Commissioner Paul) Tagliabue could say we've got it locked up here, but what about elsewhere?'' said Jeff Marks of the Sports Business Group, a sports-marketing consulting firm in Redondo Beach.

``Football is hard to pick up, plop it in a new country and understand it. It's not like you slap a basket on a pole and get five guys and a ball. The NFL has to be strategic. It has the strongest brand and can't afford to go into another market and make a mistake.''

Ten years ago, the NFL threw its considerable weight into NFL Europe, a developmental spring league, but it has received little return. Average attendance is less than 20,000, no discernible European talent has been developed and the league is losing a reported $20 million per year. In 2003, NFL owners came within one vote of dropping the league, a matter they will consider again next year.

Mexico, if it doesn't have Europe's broad wealth, nevertheless appears a logical place for the NFL to makes its first push beyond the border. It has the largest fan base outside the United States (an estimated 20 million, says the NFL), an enthusiastic corporate base, NFL games have been broadcast in Mexico since 1966 and it is close by. Also, an overarching factor is the burgeoning Hispanic population in the United States.

``We've played three preseason games down there and the question that's always been asked is when can we have regular season games,'' said Jerry Jones Jr., the Cowboys director of marketing.

The Cowboys and the Raiders are Mexico's most popular teams and have proved that cultivating Hispanic fans on both sides of the border is good business.

Quarterback Jim Plunkett and coach Tom Flores, both of Mexican heritage, helped win a Super Bowl for the Raiders, who also became the first team to have a Web site in Spanish.

The Cowboys, who have broadcast their games on Mexican radio for nearly 30 years, broadcast their coach's show and owner Jerry Jones' show in Spanish and have held tryouts in Mexico for Jones' Arena League team. They are also the only NFL team that has a manufacturing deal with a Mexican company, Athletica, which produces Cowboys merchandise and memorabilia for sale in Mexico.

``You might say Mexico isn't wealthy, but there's a select group who love American football and are willing to pay for it,'' said Marks, who two years ago did some market research for a client exploring the prospects for a team in Monterrey, a city of four million a few hours drive from the Texas border. Indeed, both the Cowboys and the Houston Texans have season-ticket holders with addresses in Mexico.

``(In Monterrey), you saw Ferraris in the street and there were people who would drive across the border and pay cash for procedures because the health care is so much better in the United States,'' Marks said.

The NFL's partner in promoting the game is media giant Televisa, which owns three Mexican soccer teams. Another sponsor is Telmex, the communications company owned by Carlos Slim, who is rated by Forbes as the world's fourth wealthiest person.

It is no coincidence that the NFL is more popular with the more educated and moneyed, according to interviews with nearly a dozen Mexicans.

Most games are broadcast on cable or satellite, which many here cannot afford. Nor are they likely to have traveled to the United States and been further exposed to the game.

Nevertheless, the American influence is tangible in viewing habits. ``Monday Night Football'' has become a social event, the Super Bowl is the second most-watched sporting event next to the ``Super Classico'' soccer match between Chivas and America, and gambling has fueled the NFL's popularity.

``It's a big reason why the NFL survives and is so strong,'' said Moises Benhos, the owner of a textile business in Mexico City who plans to put $200 on the Cardinals on Sunday.

Still, the NFL - or Futbol Americano - has a hard time reaching the masses. It's a complicated game and all the inaction between plays makes it boring, said Cesar Arredondo, an engineering student. Neither does it help that Mexicans can't see one of their own - except possibly when a team kicks an extra point.

Mexicans are particularly prideful of anyone who makes it big away from home, from Fernando Valenzuela to 400-meter world champion Ana Guevara.

``It doesn't happen a lot, so when somebody really makes it in other places, everybody feels for them,'' Mexico City native Charlie Johnson said.

The closest thing to that now in the NFL is Rolando Cantu, a guard on the Cardinals practice squad who played in college at the National Polytechnic Institute in Monterrey.

The NFL established an office in Mexico City in 1998 to help forge sponsorship and broadcasting deals, and it has funded a touch football program it says has reached more than 100,000 children, ages 8-18. It has also hired Marcos Gurles, who spent three offseasons working with the Jets coaches, as a scout.

This week the NFL is putting on a Super Bowl-like media blitz with fact sheets touting the event and conference calls to promote it. A cheerleader exhibition took place Thursday and Cantu will conduct a pair of clinics Saturday. Then there is the game, in front of an expected 90,000, which may be as close to the spectacle of a Super Bowl as either the Cardinals or 49ers get any time soon.

Juan Ramon Pelaez says he isn't likely to go, but he will watch the game on TV out of curiosity. As he sat and watched Pumas play on Wednesday night, his eyes fixed on the field, he didn't seem convinced that football will take hold.

``It's a sentimental culture,'' he said, sitting among dozens of fans wearing purple and gold Pumas jerseys. ``Futbol is very much a part of Latin culture. American football is not.''

Billy Witz, [phone]

billy.witz(at)dailynews.com

CAPTION(S):

2 photos, box

Photo:

(1 -- 2) Kevan Barlow (32) and the 49ers, left, will try to win support for American football in a city and culture entrenched in soccer, like that played by the Pumas' Juaquin Beltran (3), at right.

Left: Jonathan Ferry/Getty Images; Right: Juan Barreto/AFP/Getty Images

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