Cisco enterprise networking and cybersecurity solutions to support league operations across 2024 NFL International Games in Brazil, the United Kingdom and Germany, in addition to Spain in 2025.
The National Football League and Cisco have announced that the NFL is now leveraging Cisco’s industry-leading enterprise networking and cybersecurity solutions to connect and protect the NFL International Games.
Through the agreement, the NFL will continue to rely on the same Cisco technology and expertise used for the Super Bowl, NFL Draft and NFL Kickoff to bolster their operations across a growing slate of international games, which includes matchups in São Paulo, London and Munich in 2024 and Madrid in 2025.
Over the past several years, the NFL and Cisco have worked together to develop a networking and cybersecurity playbook that is now coming to life across the partnership, leveraging the collective power of Cisco’s industry-leading networking, security and observability expertise and solutions.
The NFL’s growing international operations are also leveraging this playbook, with solutions including switching for networking, and a combination of on-premises hardware and cloud-based software from the Cisco Security portfolio, including Cisco Umbrella, Cisco XDR, Cisco Firepower and Cisco Secure Malware Analytics. Cisco’s world-class CX services team continues to support the NFL from deployment to monitoring and troubleshooting in real-time.
“Cisco has been a trusted partner of the NFL for many years, providing the networking and cybersecurity technology that we rely on to connect and protect our biggest events, as well as our daily operations,” said Gary Brantley, Chief Information Officer at the NFL.
“As we continue to expand our presence globally, Cisco’s proven track record in delivering on the biggest stages, in constantly evolving, digital environments, allows us to execute with confidence.”
On an international stage, the NFL requires a technological infrastructure that prioritises simplicity, visibility, reliability and protection. Cisco Secure Firewall helps the NFL with end-to-end visibility, simplified security management and network segmentation across distributed and hybrid networks, while Cisco XDR allows the league to investigate, prioritise and remediate the highest priority incidents with AI-enhanced speed, efficiency and decisiveness.
The solutions across the Cisco Security portfolio complement each other to provide the highest level of security and confidence for the NFL and guest environments. This integrated, end-to-end deployment at Super Bowl LVIII this past February successfully blocked 39,000 security intelligence events and 354,000 connections to or from blacklisted areas of the world, ensuring 100% network uptime to keep the game and all its operations running smoothly.
“The NFL International Games presents an enormous opportunity for the NFL, so we are proud to be the partner they trust to deliver the connectivity and security required to operate globally,” said Rob McQueen, Vice President of Global Sponsorships at Cisco.
“Failure is not an option in these dynamic, high-pressure environments, and Cisco technology continues to deliver for the biggest leagues, teams, events and stadiums everywhere.”
Cisco also sponsored the inaugural NFL Flag European Continental Series, which featured the Girls Under-14 national champions of five European countries: Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain and Spain. Athletes from these five teams attended the New York Jets versus Minnesota Vikings game on October 6, and competed in a one-day tournament at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium the following day.
The announcement builds upon an existing relationship between the NFL and Cisco, which since 2021 has served as the Official Enterprise Networking Partner and an Official Cybersecurity Partner of the NFL, connecting and protecting the league and its operations 365 days a year.
In addition, every NFL stadium’s replay control room is built on Cisco technology and connected back to the Art McNally Gameday Central in New York via a Cisco network, and nearly all of the league’s official partners and two-thirds of NFL stadiums rely on Cisco technology, including Levi’s Stadium and SoFi Stadium, sites of the Super Bowl LX and LXI, respectively.
Tomás Maldonado, NFL Chief Information Security Officer
We asked Tomás Maldonado, NFL Chief Information Security Officer, further questions to find out more.
With the NFL expanding its international operations, how are Cisco’s cybersecurity solutions, such as Cisco Umbrella and Cisco XDR, helping to protect the league’s global events from evolving cyberthreats?
When you are securing networks all around the globe, there are numerous challenges that present themselves, so it is important to have the technology and capability of providing a certain standard of security regardless of where the events are being held. Cisco is instrumental in supporting the NFL from network design through operational support.
The introduction of Cisco’s security solutions provides the NFL with industry leading cybersecurity protections and capabilities driving our enhanced security posture for the NFL International Games. Cisco XDR and Umbrella help us bring it all into one single pane of glass so that we can efficiently monitor and manage these events. Cisco’s technology makes it easier for our team to respond to alerts and secure the networks.
What specific cybersecurity challenges have you faced when managing large-scale events like the Super Bowl and NFL International Games, and how has Cisco’s technology helped overcome these challenges?
Given the number and multiple locations of our tentpole events, we find ourselves facing multitudes of new attack vectors to the networks that we use to support the events. Hosting games around the globe in locations with disparate technology introduces a diverse cyberthreat landscape. At each and every location we face variables in host location’s technology stack, their ability to implement appropriate cybersecurity controls and their inherent cyber-response capabilities. Cisco, through their solutions and services, allows the NFL to scale and deploy a platform that helps to meet the needs of large-scale events like the Super Bowl and the NFL International Games.
Cisco’s integrated security approach blocked 354,000 connections to blacklisted areas during Super Bowl LVIII. Could you elaborate on the importance of this kind of proactive threat detection for high-profile NFL events?
Proactive cybersecurity increases efficiency. By leveraging Cisco’s advanced security tools and resources it allows us to advance our security controls and become highly proactive. Through their advanced analytics, threat intelligence, Machine Learning and continuous monitoring we are able to deliver a rock-solid cybersecurity posture. Of the 354,000 blocked connections, security practitioners function under the belief that ‘it only takes one’.
As the NFL leverages both on-premises and cloud-based security solutions, how do you ensure end-to-end visibility and real-time incident response across such a vast and complex network infrastructure?
Network visibility is integral for cybersecurity. For security professionals, visibility is critical to detecting, identifying and mitigating risk. As environments expand, becoming more complex, they can become obstacles to visibility.
Cisco’s security solutions provide the NFL with visibility across platforms which allow teams to rapidly detect and respond in the event of a cyberincident. Seamless integrations between on-premises and cloud solutions equips the NFL with the power of visibility required to deliver modern day cybersecurity.
Given the dynamic nature of NFL events and their growing international scope, how does Cisco’s AI-enhanced security, including Cisco XDR, enable the league to respond quickly and effectively to high-priority cybersecurity incidents?
Response time to cyberincidents is crucial. Large amounts of telemetry and data are analysed by Cisco’s AI-enhanced platforms which provides the ability for our team to make faster and more informed decisions when it matters the most.
