How Long Until a London Super Bowl?

Philip Stone February 4, 2008

With all attention on Arizona Sunday for this year’s Super Bowl, the question openly being asked in Europe , given National Football League (NFL) Commissioner Roger Goodell’s penchant for internationalizing the game, is how long before there’s a Super Bowl in London’s Wembley Stadium?

And if you think that is a far-off cry, then just listen to what an NFL spokesman said last week. “We know there is a tremendous interest by a number of cities here in the US and in Europe in hosting the game. We have not analyzed the concept of a city like London hosting the Super Bowl, but it’s something we may look at in the future.”

The Super Bowl has become ever popular in Europe. It used to be that when the game was shown live it was by satellite or cable stations with the occasional public broadcaster (for instance, ORF in Austria). But last year public broadcaster France 2 showed the game live for the first time and this year the BBC for the first time showed in on its BBC2 terrestrial channel whereas before you either watched it on Sky satellite subscription television or, in France, on Canal + subscription TV.

The NFL had tremendous success in holding a New York Giants - Miami Dolphins regular season game at Wembley last October with a sell-out crowd of more than 81,000, and apparently many times that number of tickets could have been sold. So Commissioner Roger Goodell has announced there’ll be another game at Wembley this year, too, between the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers. The two teams were picked with care, for both are aggressive offensive squads so there should be a large score line that will excite the crowds. Goodell says he endorses a plan to play one game a year in London for the next three years.

One problem with Wembley, given the muddy conditions of last year’s game, was the difficulty for the players to get a good footing in the new turf. The groundskeepers weren’t too happy, either, with what that game did to their beloved turf, and if that proves a problem again this year then there are other major stadiums in Scotland or Wales that could be used.

If the NFL were to expand internationally then London could well be its first non-American city, although one would think its priority would be to have a franchise in America’s second largest TV market – Los Angeles.

A Super Bowl in London may still be a dream but it is obvious that the NFL, along with the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association, are actively looking at expanding their franchises internationally, and that can bring a whole new television audience to those leagues.