The International Series as it is now labelled first started back in 2007 and has already arranged another three fixtures for its eighth consecutive season. As of this season there has already been eleven games, all hosted in London at the countries self-dubbed national stadium Wembley. Momentum has built so much for the International Series that the year of 2014 saw three games played as will the next two seasons. The International Series is evidently growing, but does it really have a permanent future within England.
There is an obvious attraction to the sport by people in England with the least amount of tickets being sold for a single game is 76,981 for Chicago Bears and Tampa Bay. Every other game hosted at Wembley has sold well into the 80,000’s, with most fans staying until the final play of the game. Wembley an iconic soccer stadium is completely taken over when the NFL comes to town, flags of the travelling teams don the famous Wembley Way and announcers proudly discuss the team’s recent form prior to kick-off. A country that for many years that has refused to integrate into the sport referred to as American Football and often described as a ‘soft man’s rugby’, has really started to sweep the nation. Forget the coverage of supposed NFL fans from England by some American TV companies, the reality is fans from the UK are just as passionate, loyal and dedicated to the sport as their US counterparts. The UK NFL fan has to regularly stay up into the early hours of the morning, just to look their favourite team play, then go to work or school just hours later. This is the sort of dedication you get from NFL fans within England and the UK as a whole.
The key for Roger Goodell is that a permanent international side makes plenty of revenue for the NFL as a whole, unless it makes plenty of money in the long run there would be no point having it and it would make enough money. As Wembley is already the allocated location for any International Series games thus far, then it is extremely likely that any international permanent side would reside here. This would mean no new expensive is needed so that is an awful lot of money saved, for example the Atlanta Falcons stadium is estimated to cost around $1.4 billion in construction costs. That is an awful lot of money to be saved by moving to the pre-built Wembley, an extremely expensive stadium in its own right. It would mean that the new side or a side moving over to London would only have to rent the stadium every season and the FA would be the tenants. Training facilities could be easily built for the side or even rented as well with several football clubs already willingly giving up their training space for the NFL players. As for cold hard revenue which of course is vital for all businesses the last three International Series games, brought in an impressive $32 million from ticket sales alone. That doesn’t add in the merchandise sold and the rent paid by food vendors hoping to capitalise on a big event. The NFL is a financial juggernaut within the US and it is hoping that London can help it reach its goal of having a revenue of $27 billion per year by 2027.
But it is not only about diehard fans. The International Series to succeed and potentially have a permanent side over in London requires new fans to be introduced into the sport. While there is no clear indication that this is for certain going on, since the International Series began back in 2007 the viewership of NFL games on Sky has increased. So much so in fact that the NFL has risen from 10th most looked sport on Sky Sports to 6th within just three years of the International Series starting, while TV viewership numbers for NFL matches are had to collect for TV channels within the UK it is widely accepted that the NFL is now based around 5th in sport viewership. This means along the way new fans must have been introduced to aid this boost but why does this matter? Well what it means is that there will be a larger number fans willing to pay their money to go look a permanent team on a regular basis rather than just once or twice a season.
From the UK’s perspective it is great for the UK economy, £32 million was pumped into the local economy thanks largely to retail and the entertainment around the ground. But a lot of money was also pumped into local pubs, cafes, restaurants and hotels. But a full time NFL side in London for all eight games would bring in an estimated £108 million to the local economy which would be untouched by the NFL. So not only is the NFL improving its yearly revenue the UK’s economy is taking a large boost thanks to NFL fans flocking to the city. British Chancellor George Osborne backed having a permanent NFL team in an interview with the Evening Standard describing it as a “huge boost for London” if they were to get a team full time.
So at the moment it seems it would be a great idea to have an NFL team residing over in London full time, but it isn’t all great.
One issue the NFL faces with their dreams of a London based franchise is they are trying to sell the team to people who are already lifelong fans of another side. Who would be willing to give up their support of a team they have been through the ups and downs with, cheered for and some even cried for, just to throw it all in for a brand new side? Yes they will be able to look this team more often, but it isn’t as easy as that to throw away the passion you had for a side. So this leads to one major issue. Who is going to look the games with regularity, week in week out? Through sunshine, rain, sleet, hail, victory and defeat. Who will be willing to stop supporting a team they have supported most their lives? The answer is in reality not many, the London based franchise would most likely have a very unreliable and fair weather fan base. Blockbuster games against the New England Patriots of this world would sell out, but games against sides such as the Jaguars would more than likely fare a lot worse. The black and white of it is this, a London franchise would not have the regular and reliable support over a long period of time that it would need.
With soccer being the main support within England and the likelihood is it will always will, there will be outrage when the turf is ruined for England football matches. Wembley is the only place that England can play their football games up to 2017 and they are likely to stay after this period to pay off the huge cost of the new Wembley. After the Cowboys and Jags game the turf was badly damaged and the England side played just one week later, many of the players and coaching staff complained that the turf ruined the game as it was difficult to play on. If this occurred after just three NFL games, imagine how bad it would be after an entire season of eight home games and then potentially playoff games. The turf would be ruined and the majority of sport fans within the country would be up in arms. To make matters there is no plausible way to prevent this from happening as the England national team only have certain weeks they can play on and often play back to back weeks, when they do play. Furthermore would it be realistic to host games on the same day as soccer teams? Say Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham all have home games on the same day as the NFL side, the congestion in an already busy London would be insane. Not only could this cause major stoppages for everyday travellers but would there even be the man power to police the huge influx of cars? Rounded down Wembley hosts 80,000, Stamford Bridge 40,000, The Emirates 60,000 and White Hart Lane holds 36,000. All together that would be a staggering 216,000 extra cars and people.
As mentioned earlier there is a fear the supporters for the London based side would be fair weather supporters. Well this does not bode well for any potential side because if a new team was started from scratch then it would to be polite, very, very poor. Or another possibility a team such as the Jaguars relocate, well this isn’t great either as the Jaguars rarely have winning seasons either so at the cost of tickets people from England will have to pay it would mean sooner or later attendances would fall quickly. Along with this many people go to these matches because it is turned into a massive event by the NFL, but during a regular season for a relocated team it wouldn’t quite be the same. The attraction would fade off and this too would lose followers.
Plus while it is impressive that all the games bar one have had over 80,000 plus attendances. If you were to go around the ground on a game day you would notice that there are people from a wide range of countries; England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, Spain, Poland, Lithuania, Russia as well as America and many more. The stadium is selling out based on people from abroad coming over and viewing the game. This in itself shows that the games are not being sold out by English fans alone, which means by the time a team is located in London for good attendance will fall as people from all these over countries would not be willing to travel every week or two weeks for a game due to time and cost.
As for cost an average International Series ticket is around the £50 mark, the average train to London and back for people outside of London is £40, underground travel is around £10 food and drink would be a bare minimum of £10 – £20 totalling all this up to a staggering £120 at least for every home game unless you are near the ground. Times that by 8 for all the games you are facing a price of £960 just for eight games. So say it was more like £1000 as the ticket price of £50 is questionable and could potentially rise to as much as £60 a ticket, £1000 would be one third of the average amount of disposable income people have within the UK. That is an extremely lot of money to ask people to cough up soccer on the other hand is on average for a Premier League club around £1000 for 19 home games, several cup games and any European games that the club may be involved in. £1000 for eight games is a lot to ask people to be dishing out every year and yet again the price would put some people off.
All in all the argument of whether an NFL team would logically work within the UK and most importantly London is not hugely swaying towards side. For every positive there is a negative and vice versa but there do seem to be too many negatives to secure a long-term, loyal and ever growing fan base. For this reason it would be very likely that despite how much English and UK NFL fans love the sport, it would struggle in the long-term. Will the NFL push ahead and try and venture into England anyway waits to be seen, but they must be prepared for a turbulent outcome.
