The NFL will broaden its global talent acquisition efforts by establishing an academy in Australia, a country passionate about rugby, to nurture talented youth in the Asia-Pacific area into prospects for college and the NFL. The NFL announced on Thursday that after recruitment camps this summer in Australia and New Zealand, the academy will open in September for student athletes ages 12 to 18.
Football has changed my life, and opening an NFL Academy in Australia will no doubt help many more young people change theirs, Philadelphia Eagles offensive tackle Jordan Mailata, a 6-foot-8 (2.08-meter) Australian who was deemed too big for rugby league, said in the league announcement ahead of the NFL Draft.
The school will be located at A.B. Paterson College on the Gold Coast, and plans call for building a high-performance building on the college property, which will be finished in 2026 and open to the public, as well as other uses. The Eagles’ first-round selection will be announced by Mailata, who joined the league through the International Player Pathway program. “The Asia-Pacific region is rich in sporting talent, and I look forward to seeing the next generation of football players out there craft their own pathway to playing in the NFL in the years to come,” Mailata said.
This move is part of the league’s ongoing global expansion strategy. The NFL will host its first regular-season game in Brazil on September 6; the Green Bay Packers and the Eagles will meet. NFL owners approved in December to allow the league to host eight games overseas per season. In addition to one game in Germany, the NFL will hold three games in London in 2024. And the first match, scheduled for 2025, will take place at Real Madrid’s recently refurbished Santiago Bernabeu Stadium against Spain.
The Asia-Pacific region has a lot of potential, and not just for Australian punters. New Zealand sprinter Eddie Osei-Nketia switched to American football to play for Hawaii. Rugby and Australian Rules are potentially good sources of talent, like Welsh rugby union star Louis Rees-Zammit, who signed with the Kansas City Chiefs as a returner/running back/wide receiver. The league already has an academy in the UK. Europe has emerged as a reliable source of Division I recruits.
The first academy recruitment camp is set to take place at A.B. Paterson College on June 29. The second is on July 6 in Sydney, and the camp on August 24 in Auckland, New Zealand, comes next. According to Brett Gosper, the NFL’s head of Europe and APAC, “the NFL Academy program is a significant league initiative that is driving football development efforts globally and successfully changing the lives of young people around the world.
In the years to come, we hope to expand the program’s reach to the Gold Coast in Australia and keep creating real player routes for gifted players abroad, enabling more youth from the Asia-Pacific area to participate in the game.