Can an NFL Franchise Work in the UK?

Since 2007 American Football has been played in the home of English Football, Wembley Stadium. The 90,000 capacity stadium regularly sells out whenever games are played. Now, it’s been announced that the NFL are going to expand their UK venture by at least three games at Twickenham Stadium, the home of England Rugby, between 2016 and 2018. To add to this, from 2018 until at least 2027 at least 2 games per year will also take place at Tottenham’s new stadium. This means by 2018 5 NFL games a year will be played in London. A team in the NFL only plays 8 home games a year, so London is over halfway to that target. So that begs the question, will an NFL franchise happen and work in the UK?

So there are a few things any sports franchise needs to work, especially a team in something as high profile as the NFL. So what is needed in-order for a pro-NFL team to be successful?:

Space to Play / Train

As I already mentioned NFL teams have already found space to play with Wembley Stadium regularly selling out of tickets to NFL games, the expansion into Tottenham’s new stadium and Twickenham means that 5 NFL games will be played in the UK capital a year. With other large stadiums including Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge, Arsenal’s Emirate’s Stadium, and the Olympic Stadium (now home to West Ham United) there is plenty of room for expansion to other large London stadiums, so space to play is unlikely to be a problem. Hell, if they brand the franchise as a ‘UK’ or ‘England’ franchise rather than a ‘London’ franchise, games could be played across the country.

The next issue related to the space to play issue is, where will the team train? Without a permanent stadium it will be difficult for a team to set up a permanent training camp. However, it’s not impossible. London’s neighbouring, and less build up counties host many professional sports camps – my home county of Surrey has the England National Rugby team’s training camp based at Pennyhill Park in Bagshot, the Harlequins RFC training camp in Guildford, and Chelsea FC based in Cobham. With multiple big universities with large training grounds in, and around, London, as well as the facilities of major sports teams, there are plenty of options to adopt training grounds and gyms until a custom one is built.

A Consistent Fan-base with Potential for Growth

One of the big things an NFL team needs is a fan-base with potential for growth. It’s all well and good selling out Wembley Stadium once or twice a year, but for an NFL franchise to work the stadiums need to be sold out every week. The Telegraph revealed in September that there is potential for an NFL team to bring home £102m a year if they get the attendance. With an extra boost to the UK economy of £96 million a year.

So, is there a fan-base for a NFL team to work? I think there is. According to the 2011 UK census  63,920 Londoners were born in the USA, with a total of 177,185 Americans living in England and Wales. That’s more than enough Americans to fill a smaller stadium, even if we discount those who are not fans of the sport/unwilling to go. Add onto that the 82,000 Canadian born people in the UK (this sport is popular in Canada), of which most live in London, and there is a real market for an NFL team to flourish.

Moreover, the sport is growing at a grassroots level in Britain both in terms of interest and people playing. Many UK universities have American football teams and according to Vice’s very conservative statistics the NFL has around 3.4 million viewers in the UK despite substantial time differences.

Teams to Play

A common issue people bring up is the flight times between the USA and UK, and whether teams will be willing to travel the distance on a regular basis. However, each away team would only have to make the trans-Atlantic trip twice a year. Flights between New York and London are, after-all, around 8 hours. The current flight times between home grounds in the States are substantially less than this. The biggest distance (I think) being in the National Football Conference, East division, between Arlington, Texas, (home of the Dallas Cowboys) and East Rutherford, New Jersey (New York Giants) of just over 3 hours. This is obviously a crucial issue, however, teams have already shown their willingness to fly across the Atlantic to play in London in the NFL internationals series.

The Bigger Issues:

The Atlantic Ocean

As mentioned above teams may be unwilling to fly across the Atlantic twice a year to play a London based team, however, there is an even greater issue caused by geography. The team based in London will have to fly across the Atlantic 8 times a year to play their away games. The physical toll of flying between time zones is large and will make playing for a London based franchise unattractive for players. Which leads me onto my next point…

Finding Players for the London Side

Moving home is a big deal, moving country even bigger, moving continents is massive. Players may be unwilling or simply unable to move out to the UK. Although many foreigners romanticise London, it’s hard to see why players would leave their friend and family in the States to come play in the pissing rain every week. The distance along with the culture shock of moving to a nation separated by a common language (and a big ocean) will be hard on any players that move here. Even if a whole franchise up and moved to the UK, for example, the Jacksonville Jaguars (the team that has played in London most frequently) it’s hard to see how they will retain players and get good picks in the college draft if the prospect is moving abroad. That’s not even mentioning the tax players will face. Taxes are much higher in the UK than in the States, and US citizens who come to work here still have to pay US income tax even when abroad – as well as paying income tax in the UK. It means players in the UK will either have to be paid a lot more to compensate for the money they are losing (which will surely put the US media into a spin about the amount they are paid) or players will have to actively take a pay-cut caused by moving abroad. Neither is a welcome prospect.

Los Angeles

Finally, the biggest issue to the prospect of a London based NFL team is Los Angeles. America’s second largest city and media market has been without an NFL team since 1994. It already has a prebuilt, ready to go, American Football stadium that seats over 93,000 people – Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. It’s pure stupidity to move an NFL franchise abroad, with all the financial, geographical and legal issues, when one of the USA’s biggest cities has been waiting for a team for two decades.

Final Thoughts

An NFL team could be viable in London, however, it does face a few hurdles – geography being one of the most prominent ones. If the NFL truly wants to hit Europe having one team based here, while arguably opening the floodgates, could be disastrous if unsuccessful. A number of problems could be addressed if the NFL was willing to drop the finances to establish 4 new franchises in Europe to create a European division. Now, while this would cost easily 4 times as much, it would mean that the underlying issue of long-distance flights was tackled. It would also foster local and national rivalries that could make the game more popular in the Old World. Again, there would be huge problems with this idea, but it’s worth a thought isn’t it? A team based in each of the Home Nations could be a starting point. This is a pipe dream away though. For now the NFL should remain in North America and try to expand the game on that continent. Los Angeles have high hopes for a team as does Toronto in Canada. The sport also has high viewing figures in Mexico and Brazil. American Football should remain in the Americas until the game is full established outside of the USA. Then, and only then, will it be time to expand to Europe.