Shohei, Wemby, and the Superstar Problem the NFL Can’t Solve
America’s biggest league has everything — except a global superstar.
Every fall, we get this strange and wonderful overlap where all the major American sports are happening at once. For a few short weeks, the differences between them — and the similarities — are laid bare.
And this year, I keep finding myself thinking about baseball and basketball, and how close they suddenly feel in one specific way: both leagues have a once-in-a-generation international superstar transforming their sport’s global reach.
Meanwhile, the NFL, despite all its power and money, doesn’t.
Shohei Ohtani and Baseball’s Global Spark
As I write this, Shohei Ohtani has just led the Dodgers to another remarkable postseason effort, and baseball has never had a more unanimously liked and unanimously revered player. He’s done a ton for the MLB — especially with respect to its international appeal — but even beyond that, he’s made baseball feel mystical again. Must-watch again.
He’s exactly what people used to dream up in MLB The Show create-a-players. He does all the coolest parts of baseball better than everyone else — and he does it while being the kind of player you didn’t think you’d live to see.
And yes, his Japanese identity matters here. We’ve seen international stars in baseball before — Ichiro comes closest, and Ohtani even shares the field with a few — but Ohtani’s performance and popularity live on another planet. The MLB loves him not just because he’s great, but because he’s unlocked something enormous in Japan and across East Asia. The league has been desperate for that foothold.
If you haven’t been keeping up, baseball’s international push has gotten real. I learned a few months ago that Chase Utley literally served as MLB ambassador to the UK, and games in Korea and London have been legitimately fun — much more enjoyable than the NFL’s similar ventures.
At this point, everyone is talking about Ohtani. Even if you don’t watch baseball, you’ve heard the hype.
Victor Wembanyama and the NBA’s Rising Global Face
And if you haven’t been watching basketball, something similar is brewing. Victor Wembanyama isn’t Ohtani yet — nowhere close — but the NBA sure hopes he will be, and he’s on track to be must-see TV.
Wemby is a 7-foot-5 French 21-year-old who shoots from three better than LeBron and somehow manages to be charismatic, likable, and genuinely weird online in all the right ways. His Halloween costumes have already included Slenderman and No-Face from Spirited Away. Even veteran commentators talk about him like he’s a once-in-a-lifetime reason to go to a game.
His opening-night performance this year? I agree with Ryen Russillo — it might have been one of the best single-game performances by any player ever.
He hasn’t hit Ohtani’s level yet, but the conversation around him feels oddly similar to early-career Angels-era Ohtani. Already a marvel. Not yet a myth.
And he’s arriving at the exact moment the NBA is becoming a global sport in a way it used to only dream of. Look at ESPN’s preseason top-10 list this year: zero of the top five players were American. Wemby, Giannis, Luka, Jokic, Shai — France, Greece, Slovenia, Serbia, Canada.
All of these guys are extraordinary talents and put on dozens of must-watch performances a year. But only Wembenyama represents the potential to be an Ohtani-level figure, one who does things on the court that you never dreamed to see outside of NBA2K.
Basketball isn’t trying to go global. It’s already there.
The NFL Wants That — But Doesn’t Have It
That brings us to football.
Within the US, the NFL owns more than a day of the week at this point. But internationally? The MLB, NBA, and even the NHL feel like they’re ahead in proportion to domestic interest. And that’s before you even mention soccer, cricket, and rugby creeping into US consciousness.
It’s not for lack of effort. The NFL has poured staggering resources into going global. Since 2007, we’ve had the International Series in London — and yes, somehow the NFL manages to send a boring game abroad every year — and since then it has exploded.
This year alone saw games in the UK, Spain, Ireland, and Germany. In the last few years, we’ve seen games in Mexico and Brazil.
The league has also carved up the world for its franchises through Home Marketing Areas — essentially countries teams can “claim” for branding purposes:
Dolphins in Argentina
Chargers in Greece
Eagles in Ghana
Rams in Japan and South Korea
Browns in Nigeria
Other markets are competitive bloodbaths — Germany, Mexico, the UK have 10+ teams vying for fandom.
And the NFL isn’t stopping. Flag football in the 2028 Olympics didn’t just appear — the NFL pushed it. The NFL FLAG 50 campaign is everywhere.
Flag football is also a solution to one of the league’s biggest global problems: international parents are way less likely to throw their kids into a sport associated with brain damage. And flag brings women and girls into the system too — potential new fans, and someday, stars.
But The NFL Is Missing One Thing
They still don’t have an Ohtani or a Wemby.
I think there are players in the NFL who represent the potential for myth-making that the NFL needs. If Travis Hunter manages to produce as both a cornerback and wide receiver, it could be him. If Saquon Barkley somehow finds a way to hurdle a guy upside-down this time, maybe it’s him. But they lack the global appeal the NFL needs to compete.
On the other hand, there are great international NFL players — Jordan Mailata is a monster, and Amon-Ra St. Brown switching seamlessly into German in interviews makes Roger Goodell actually levitate and leave his body — but these guys aren’t quite global culture-shifting figures.
For now, football keeps exporting the product. Baseball and basketball exported the myth.
Conclusion
The MLB has an international supernova at the center of its story and the NBA is watching the potential ascension of their own — these are players who don’t just dominate their leagues but make the sport feel bigger than the country it was born in.
The NFL has ambition, money, and morning games in London.
But until they find a player who can make the rest of the world see American football the way Japan sees Ohtani or France sees Wembanyama, they’re going to keep pushing uphill.
The NFL has all the resources in the world, but they’re missing the most important kind of resource — the human one.