[drewmate]

This is an interesting conversation to peruse while watching an NFL (American football) game being played in Munich. [0]

I’m not sure why the NFL does a few of these games (overseas, more often in London) each year. The stadium seems full, but I don’t know if it’s more Americans who traveled for the game, Europeans who are clamoring for more American Football, or just folks curious to see what the game is like.

I think there is great value for the US in the soft power that comes from other countries adopting American culture, but I’m not sure whether it’s deliberate or just a natural consequence of being such a large economy. There’s also a deeply embedded sense of ‘manifest destiny’ in American culture. We’re out of land to acquire, because we reached the pacific coast and modern politics doesn’t allow for empire building the way it once did. So maybe the next frontier in expanding (our) civilization is to spread our culture.

[0] https://www.espn.com/nfl/game/_/gameId/401435638