As Wembley prepares to welcome another sell-out crowd for the first of three American Football games this autumn, the head of NFL UK has softened expectations of a British franchise in the near future. Alistair Kirkwood, says that while the sport has“great momentum”, he does not expect a London team this decade.
In the past week the chancellor, George Osborne, and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, have talked of their hopes of an NFL franchise coming to London, with Johnson suggesting that a team could be playing at Tottenham’s revamped stadium “in the next few years”.
But speaking to the Observer before Sunday’s New York Jets v Miami Dolphins game, Kirkwood, NFL UK’s managing director, was more circumspect. “We are in a good place but as we become bigger and more ambitious we probably also need to be more cautious and thoughtful too.”
He added: “Last autumn the top 25 most-watched programmes in the United States were all NFL games and that’s unparalleled. So when you are talking about doing something that’s potentially seismically different, you have to make sure it will not only work in the UK but be aware of its impact in the US too.
“It’s an absolute big leap and none of us can accurately predict the pacing and the sequencing.”
Kirkwood did say, however, that he was encouraged by the demand for this year’s International Series, and that nearly 40,000 people have bought season tickets for all three games. “It gives us a really good feeling about our long-term potential,” he noted.
“When we first announced a regular season NFL game at Wembley in 2007, reasonable questions were posed about whether there would be enough demand. Back then the owners signed off on a plan that said if we did a good job we would get a second game in 2011. Instead we got another one a year later. And now we are about to play our 12th, 13th and 14th games in the UK.”
The Jets, who have won two of their opening three matches, are slight favourites for the game but the Dolphins will have the backing of the crowd, a legacy of Channel 4’s coverage in the 1980s when quarterback Dan Marino guided Miami to Super Bowl XIX and the Marks brothers – Clayton and Duper – were two of the most exciting receivers in the league.
However, the Dolphins have struggled this season, losing two of their opening three games and suffering a 41-14 blow out to the Buffalo Bills last week. Their star defensive linemen Cameron Wake and Ndamukong Suh have failed to fire, producing only one sack in three games, while the head coach, Joe Philbin, is the favourite to be the first NFL coach to lose his job.
Kirkwood has confirmed that there will be at least three NFL games at Wembley in 2016, although he refused to be drawn on whether that might increase, but he believes that playing all three UK games in the early afternoon this year for the first time will enhance the prestige of the International Series.
“The early kick-offs make it a national game in the States, so the visibility of London and the UK is higher,” he said. “It also opens up other markets, because it is more timezone friendly in Asia than other games that kick off at normal times. And the fact that Sunday’s game will be shown on BBC2 gives us a really good platform for further growth.”
