As the NFL chases ‘global domination’, could the Super Bowl soon touch down in London?
American football is rapidly growing in popularity in the UK, writes Charles Reynolds, as the NFL chases new fans in Europe. Staging its showpiece event in London would be another major move
This Sunday, for the first time in its history, the Super Bowl comes to Las Vegas. It is a union of two contrasting heavyweight American institutions to rival that of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio, although hopefully a significantly less tumultuous one.
This will be the 58th Super Bowl or, to give it its proper title, Super Bowl LVIII – a naming convention that sees Google searches for ‘how to read Roman numerals’ spike every February. Pitted against each other are last year’s champions, the Kansas City Chiefs, trying to cement their burgeoning dynasty, and the San Francisco 49ers, arguably the season’s dominant side, trying to win the prize that has eluded them since 1995.
It looks set to be a classic clash of opposites. Kansas City boast an impressive defence but a spluttering offence, almost entirely reliant on the preternatural connection between Travis Kelce (more on him later) and the sport’s best quarterback – now and arguably ever – Patrick Mahomes.
San Francisco on the other hand have a defence that has recently looked increasingly exploitable, but on offence the most fearsome collection of skill players in the NFL, and quarterback Brock Purdy who, aided by the weapons at his disposal, has defied his status as the last pick in the 2022 draft to rack up impressive numbers all season.
Last year an estimated 113 million American viewers tuned in for Super Bowl LVII, a figure only expected to grow this time around. However, the Super Bowl is no longer just the preserve of those across the pond; the NFL’s rapidly growing popularity in Britain means more people than ever will be watching the big game in the UK too.
No doubt aided by the league – since 2007 – hosting at least one regular season game in London, and as many as three in recent years, the NFL and by extension the Super Bowl’s popularity has been booming here.
In fact, according to research carried out by streaming service NOW, the last 12 months have seen a dramatic increase in interest amongst Brits, with 20% saying they’re more likely to watch the Super Bowl this year, compared to last. The same survey estimates that nearly 13 million people in Britain plan to watch the Super Bowl this Sunday.
Viewing figures this year are also set to be boosted by the Taylor Swift effect. The popstar’s relationship with Kansas City’s Kelce means ‘Swifties’ on both sides of the Atlantic, and indeed all round the world, will be watching in their extra millions.
Nobody has been more keenly aware of American football’s rising popularity than NFL UK, the British arm of the organisation. It once again saw the three regular-season games hosted in London last year sell out almost immediately, with 62,000 fans also turning up for the NFL Experience London (an immersive event with challenges like kicking a field goal) held at Battersea Power Station in the lead up to one of those games.
This year’s Super Bowl debut in Las Vegas might be one thing, but in the future could the game break ground in even more exotic pastures? What chance does London have of one day hosting American sport’s greatest showpiece?
Were an event of equivalent national importance to even exist in British sport, the prospect of it ever being played abroad would be unthinkable. But where tradition tends to rule in the UK, capitalist expansionism presides in America and so the possibility of the Super Bowl being staged in Britain does indeed exist.
As recently as this season, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell even admitted as much, telling a fan forum held in London in October 2023 that it’s an idea the league has been thinking about.
“It is not impossible, and it is something that has been discussed before,” Goodell said. “I think that it’s not out of the question.”
Although at least in the short term, the Super Bowl will be staying on American shores, with the 2025 and 2026 versions already locked in for New Orleans and Santa Clara respectively.
However further down the line, a London Super Bowl remains on the cards. “They’ve certainly never shut the door on the possibility,” Kevin Clark, host of This is Football for Omaha Productions and ESPN, tells medown the line from Las Vegas. “They’ve wanted to grow their national game in such a significant way that I don’t think a limit necessarily exists to what they’ll want to do.
“They went to London first in 2007, now they’re in Germany, and they’re going to have a Friday night game in Brazil next year. I think global dominance, let’s say, is a priority.”
A Super Bowl is for corporate sponsors, a handful of fans who have a ton of money and the league as a whole
Clark, however, can’t see it happening anytime soon. “I think it would be many decades off,” he says, our conversation briefly interrupted by a fighter jet flypast overhead, practicing for their role in Sunday’s legendary pre-game razzmatazz. “It’s hard to sell it to the 32 owners. A Super Bowl is the [financial] reward for ownership, it’s a reward for the community. And so I think it’s going to take many decades, but I would not be surprised if all that happened in my lifetime.”
It is thinking that tallies with something else Goodell told the London fan forum last October. “I think being able to play it in one of our cities, it’s a huge economic boost to those cities. Our fans live in those cities also. I think that is important. Not that we do not have great fans here [in London]; we do. So, as the international series develops, maybe that is a possibility as we play more games here.”
And what about the players, how would they react to a Super Bowl in London? One man uniquely placed to weigh in on all aspects of that hypothetical question is Christian Scotland-Williamson. Born and raised in the UK, he has been an NFL fan since his early teens, ultimately joining the Pittsburgh Steelers through the International Player Pathway – designed to bring overseas talent into the league who might have missed the traditional route via the college game.
The 6ft 9in Scotland-Williamson, who now plays rugby for Harlequins, was on the Steelers’ Practice Squad from 2018-2020 so can provide useful insight into how the idea would go down in an NFL locker room. He can see it happening, but like Clark, he believes it might take some time.
“It will definitely be a massive adjustment for the football purists because it has always been seen as America’s game,” Scotland-Williamson says. “I am sure there was a time when players didn’t think a regular season game could be played overseas. But players are starting to get used to that now.
“It might take a while, but maybe in the next generation someone will be brave enough to take the Super Bowl on tour, I am sure the players would just want to win!”
Franchise owners and players aside, arguably the biggest obstacle a London Super Bowl would face is the time difference. A game played at 8:30pm in London would air at 3:30pm Eastern Time in America or 12:30pm on the West Coast – well before its regular primetime spot of 6:30pm ET.
Or theoretically to maintain that time slot in the US it could kick off at 11:30pm in London, something that seems even less likely particularly given the limited late-night public transport in the city and usually inflexible local council regulations surrounding late-night events.
However it is not all doom and gloom for London’s hopes. There are after all reasons why the capital has been discussed as a future host. A major one is the existence of Tottenham Hotspur’s new £1.2bn stadium, the synthetic turf field beneath its retractable football pitch making it the first purpose-built American football stadium outside the USA. Indeed the ground has already successfully hosted NFL games there as part of a 10-year, $54m (£43m) deal with the league.
Given the NFL’s desire for “global dominance” and the lucrative future extra revenue that could be brought into the league – ultimately the best chance of persuading the owners to let the Super Bowl be played abroad – London would be a strategic gateway into the European market.
But what about the average American fan? How would they react to their sporting centrepiece being played abroad? The FA Cup final is perhaps the British sporting event most analogous to the Super Bowl, albeit with far less cultural capital these days, and yet even the prospect of that being played overseas would border on the sacrilegious and be a cause of great national fury.
Yet American sports fans are in general markedly more welcoming to new overseas fans of their sports than, for example, the British are to recently converted American fans of the Premier League, who are usually met with more scepticism.
Indeed, Clark believes the reception from American sports fans would be less combative: “I think there would be some sort of faux outrage initially…. and then there’d be the realisation which is the Super Bowl is not for fans who go to the games on 10 October anyway. A Super Bowl is for corporate sponsors, a handful of fans who have a ton of money and the league as a whole.
“Moving regular season games [abroad], for the common fans, was a bigger adjustment than if you moved the Super Bowl, as crazy as it sounds, because the Super Bowl is not for the common fans who go to those games in October and December.”
Whether NFL fans and owners can be persuaded to move the Super Bowl to these shores, one man certainly not standing in their way is Sadiq Khan. On the prospect, a spokesperson for the Mayor of London told The Independent: “London is the sporting capital of the world and it would be fantastic to host the prestigious Super Bowl in our great city.
“Each autumn, at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and Wembley, we see Londoners and visitors enjoy the thrill of live NFL matches. Hosting major sporting events enables sports fans to enjoy even more of what our capital has to offer, and attract visitors to our great city, helping us to build a better and more prosperous London for everyone.”
For now, though, the Super Bowl will remain exclusively on American soil, although how long that is the case remains to be seen. Who knows, before long it could be the Red Arrows streaking across London skies as the final strains of the Star Spangled Banner ring out around one of the capital’s stadiums.
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