Tottenham's new stadium is ready to host a permanent NFL franchise, with Daniel Levy hoping to stage Premier League and gridiron action on the same day, according to one of the key men involved in building the state-of-the-art venue.
Spurs’ new home, the first purpose-built American football venue outside of North America, hosted its first NFL match on Sunday as the Oakland Raiders beat the Chicago Bears 24-21.
The club has a decade-long agreement with the NFL to host two regular-season games per year. However, there is talk that a permanent UK franchise, playing eight home games a year, could set up base in north London.
Tom Jones, senior principal at design firm Populous, who helped build the ground, and believes it us up to the task.
“The intention with the design was to avoid the overlay that other stadiums have to go through,” Jones said.
“The investment in the technology, and the reason for all of that planning, is so that the transformation time can be quick enough so that Tottenham could have a full schedule of football matches and potentially a full schedule of an NFL franchise.”
“The club’s view is that they’ve already made that investment,” added Paul Jennings, Tottenham’s technology manager. “It is capable of doing it, but it’s also capable of hosting one or two games per year.
“So now the powers that be will see how that evolves. It’s not like they started small and will have to change things to have a franchise there.”
Tottenham's ground underwent a huge transformation inside five days after their Champions League commitments, including the retracting of its grass football pitch to make way for the artificial NFL surface that sits permanently 1.7m below.
The process of replacing the playing surface can take as little as 20 minutes, and Jones revealed that Levy is dreaming of a double-header.
“The brief that we got from Daniel and the club was that they wanted a stadium that was perfect for football,” Jones said. “But he had a great ambition to get the NFL to Tottenham.
“There are sliding pitches all over the world, but Tottenham had the ambition to be able to host multiple events. So, they wanted to be able to make it happen quickly.
“Daniel has a great ambition one day, which we all fear, of hosting a double-header of football in the morning and NFL in the evening.”
