The Reach of Roll Tide: Alabama Football Brand Extends Beyond Borders
There’s a different way to greet someone in every country. Sit down in a Mexican cafe, and you'll likely be met with a “buenos dias.” Stumble into a shop in Australia, and you might run into a friendly “G’day mate.” Nick and Terry Saban undoubtedly encountered quite a few ciaos during their summer vacation in Italy.
In each one of those places, you might also hear a familiar phrase.
“Roll Tide!”
Alabama football is no longer just one of the most recognizable programs in college sports. The Crimson Tide brand now rolls across continents, garnering interest from nearly every corner of the globe.
This year’s Alabama football roster features players from three foreign countries, including offensive lineman Olaus Alinen (Finland), punter James Burnip (Australia) and offensive lineman Isaiah Hastings (Canada). Next year, that number could grow to four as the Tide currently has a 2024 recruiting commit from Germany.
Alabama’s international presence isn’t just felt in recruiting. Saban mentioned receiving a few Roll Tides while abroad over the summer. Meanwhile, Alabama football is beginning to become widely recognized by both fans and media on both sides of the Atlantic.
South of the border
Clériga on the field at Bryant-Denny Stadium
Oscar Clériga
When Oscar Clériga first stepped on the field of Bryant-Denny in 2022, he was brought to tears.
"I cry for the emotion of being in that place," Clériga told BamaCentral. "Knowing all this big history, not only in the Saban era, but throughout the great story of Alabama football.”
Clériga is the internal director of U.S. sports for Claro Sports in Mexico. This allows him to cover things like the NBA, American football and the Olympic Games. Claro Sports broadcasts college football games in Mexico and 17 other Latin American countries like Chile, Columbia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama and Costa Rica. Clériga made sure to include that when asking Saban about the Crimson Tide’s reach last year.
"I wasn't aware of all these places that watch us," Saban said at the time. "But I do know that we have an iconic brand that sort of spreads, not only throughout the United States, but in some of the bordering countries and in Europe."
Saban isn’t the only one unaware of Alabama’s presence south of the border. Most people associate Mexico with soccer, and there is no question that it is the country's most popular sport.
"It’s like a shock because everybody dreams about covering a World Cup, Copa América or stuff like that," Clériga said. "In my profession, I have the opportunity to go to the World Cup, to go to the Copa América… but my love is football."
So what drew a Mexican journalist to the gridiron instead of the soccer pitch?
Clériga went to school and studied administration, which is the career he started out in. However, he was neighbors with legendary Mexican broadcaster José Roberto "Pepe" Espinosa for TV Azteca, who transmitted the Super Bowl to Hispanic audiences for over 30 years while also calling NBA, NHL, college football games and the Olympics.
"He was the voice in Mexico for the NFL and NBA," Clériga said.
Espinosa opened his eyes to a different world. Clériga was allowed to shadow Espinosa during radio shows and broadcasts and fell in love with sports media industry. His first job in the industry was recording stats on paper and then handing them to Espinosa to use during a broadcast.
He grew up passionate about sports but stopped playing them around the age of 14. Then he made the jump from administration to media in 2001.
The new job has allowed Clériga to travel to Beijing and London for the Olympic Games. His first love was the Pittsburgh Steelers because of their black and gold colors, but his first football stop in the United States was Tuscaloosa, Alabama to cover the Crimson Tide in person.
Clériga interviewing former Alabama and current Pittsburgh Steeler running back Najee Harris
Oscar Clériga
Clériga has followed the career of Nick Saban since he was coaching alongside Bill Belichick with the Cleveland Browns. That's what spurred his interest in Alabama football.
Soccer reigns supreme in Mexico and other Latin American countries, but Clériga said people might be surprised by the following American football has developed in the area. Alabama is among the most popular teams in Mexico alongside Texas, Notre Dame and Georgia.
The 2022 Louisiana-Monroe game was the first Crimson Tide game he witnessed in person. Clériga also got to cover Alabma's matchup with Vanderbit the following week. Throughout the weeks leading up to those games, he was in town to attend the midweek media availabilities which allowed him to ask Saban a question in person for the first time.
"Being a passionate guy about football, standing in front of coach Nick Saban was an amazing moment for me," Clériga recalled. "The opportunity to ask a question was a dream come true. I don’t have any shame to talk like that because we’re so far away that this opportunity to do this job in the United States and bring it to Latin America and Mexico."
He enjoyed the opportunity to cover those games in person, but knew this year he wanted to do something even bigger. That’s when he started the planning process to be in town for the Crimson Tide's big matchup with Texas this weekend.
Clériga will be perhaps the only international representative among a large media contingent of national writers, beat reporters, TV personalities and radio hosts in the Bryant-Denny Stadium prospect for the top-15 matchup between the Crimson Tide and Longhorns. And it’s an honor he isn’t taking lightly.
"Last year I saw Louisiana-Monroe and Vanderbilt, but this is the real deal," he said.
Across the pond
By day, George Somerville is a financial analyst for the UK Civil Aviation Authority. In his free time, he studies college football and produces a British-based podcast with two other “chaps” that has made it to the ears of some of the biggest names in the sport, including Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey.
Somerville and fellow British football enthusiasts Oliver Hodgkinson and Alex Chinery launched "The College Chaps Podcast" in 2019 as a response to more demand for American football coverage across the pond. Somerville also writes for “The Touchdown,” a site in the U.K. that covers NFL and college football.
The three chaps have now produced over 150 episodes and have featured guests such as Sankey, ESPN's Laura Rutledge, Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney, Fox's Tom Rinaldi and more.
"We started to get guests, and that’s really when it took off," Somerville said. "Because the guests came on, we got a lot of credibility through that. I think people realized that we knew what we were talking about and provided a little different slant to it."
But once again, how does someone in a soccer-dominant culture start covering college football?
Somerville is from Glasgow, Scotland and grew up watching the soccer rivalry between Celtic F.C. and Rangers F.C. Some NFL games have been broadcasted in the U.K. for over 30 years now, and the league has played regular season games in London since 2007. At first, the NFL was just considered a "geeky" sport in the U.K according to Somerville.
His interest in American sports grew on one of his first trips to the U.S. with his brother.
They first went to a baseball game, and then his first football game was a San Diego Chargers game. However, his interest was soon piqued by college football. He couldn't wrap his around the concept of thousands of people gathering to watch amateur athletes.
"The only way you watch sports in the United Kingdom is professionally," Somerville said. "So this whole concept just didn’t make any sense to me. And I was intrigued by that.”
His first college game was by accident. It was Tulane against Tulsa in the Superdome in New Orleans, so the crowd was relatively small. There wasn’t very much spectacle because it wasn’t an on-campus game.
That all changed when he returned to the U.S. in 2015 and traveled to the South for the first time. They first went to an Ole Miss game in Oxford before heading down even further south to Alabama to watch the Crimson Tide play Ole Miss.
Watching Alabama was nothing new because the Crimson Tide and other SEC teams made frequent appearances on the broadcasts in the U.K. But seeing Alabama in person took it to a whole new level.
"When I got there, I was hooked from the get go," Somerville said. "And then that was it. That was my team. It’s not been a difficult time being an Alabama fan over the last years.”
While Somerville has yet to cover an Alabama game in person, he does sometimes participate in the weekly SEC coaches teleconference from thousands of miles and multiple time zones away.
He’s been watching SEC Media Days from the U.K. for years and wanted the opportunity to cover those same coaches and athletes in person. Even though he thought it was a "pipe dream," Somerville's editor applied for a credential for him.
To his surprise, he was approved for the credential, but he ran into a roadblock with his visa. He normally travels to the United States on a tourist visa, but those do not allow for media work. So the Scottish journalist kickstarted the process early this year to make sure he would be in Nashville this July for SEC Media Days.
At first, he was a little overwhelmed by the size and scale of the event. However, he received a confidence boost when he was called back into a meeting with Sankey when the SEC commissioner revealed that he listened to "The College Chaps Podcast."
"The first thing Greg Sankey said to me was, ‘You sound exactly like you do on your podcast,'" Somerville said. "And that just did not compute to be perfectly honest. I couldn’t wrap my head around that.”
After mostly observing on the first day of the event, Somerville decided he wanted to start getting in on the action on Day 2 and started interviewing some of the players. And on the third day, was his big moment that he still gets goosebumps thinking about.
"By Wednesday, I was like, ‘Yeah, I’m definitely getting involved here,'" Somerville recalled. "I sat deliberately quite close to the front. As soon as they asked for questions, the hand went up, and I just kept my hand up. And I was really hoping. And I got the question."
He got to ask Saban a question in the main room at SEC Media Days while the Crimson Tide head coach was at the podium. Somerville asked about Alabama's international reach, and Saban gave a long, thoughtful answer.
Somerville on Marty and McGee
George Somerville
That moment gave Somerville a lot of credibility. People started coming up to him after and wanted to talk. He ended up getting to be on the SEC Network show “Marty and McGee.” He also was invited to the SEC offices in Birmingham.
“There was a lot of highlights that week to be perfectly honest, but that was the highlight of the week to get that opportunity," Somerville said of his opportunity with Saban.
Bama beyond borders
Having international players on the roster under Saban is nothing new. Former defensive lineman Jesse Williams (2011-2012) is from Australia, and former wide receiver John Metchie III (2019-2021) is from Canada.
With the success of Alabama under Saban, it's no surprise the Crimson Tide has grown in popularity all over the world. As Clériga pointed out, people like winners, and the Crimson Tide has done a lot of that with six national championships and eight conference titles since 2008.
While Alabama has grown in fandom, it has also expanded its recruiting reach.
"I think things are obviously a little more global maybe than they have ever been," Saban said in response to Somerville's question. "I think football is creating a little more of an international brand in terms of where they are playing, who is playing, how they are playing.
“We are excited with the players that we have that are international players on our team right now, and the ones that we have recruited in the past. They have all made a significant contribution."
When there are multiple international players on the team, it allows them to lean on each other for things Americans might not even think about. For Burnip, sometimes it's just nice to hear another accent instead of an American one.
"It’s always cool," Burnip said. "I came here and it was me and Metchie, who was from Canada. He talked to me when I first got here and showed me how to work around all the international stuff we have to worry about. And now with Olaus (Alinen) here, I’m sort of doing the same thing with him."
The 2024 recruiting class has a commit from German linebacker Justin Okoronkwo, a country where interest in American football continues to grow.
“The Germans are mad for football," Somerville said.
The NFL played its first game in Germany last season with the Buccaneers and Seahawks meeting up in Munich. Two million people got in the virtual queue in hopes of snagging one of the 69,811 tickets available according to Somerville.
This weekend with No. 3 Alabama taking on No. 11 Texas in the biggest college football game of the week, there will be over 100,000 fans in Bryant-Denny Stadium and millions tuning in on American televisions.
But there will also be pockets of people watching from Mexico to Scotland to Germany to Australia and everywhere in between with cheers of "Roll Tide" echoing around the globe.
