Regarded by many as the most popular sport in America, American Football is massive. The NFL (National Football League) makes millions of dollars every single day from merchandise sales and sponsorship deals alone. The support that the NFL and college teams receive every time they play is mirrored only by the largest of Premier League matches in Britain.
But does this culture of big money and big passions translate well when bought over the Atlantic to Britain?
David Tossell, the Director of Public Affairs for the NFL in Europe believes so, “We have seen pretty much every measurable that we might use in terms of judging our success, whether that’s TV audience, the number of people who have said in our research that they’re fans of the NFL, the number of people playing the game at an amateur level – all of those benchmarks have gone up and up and up.”
It seems that David’s optimism is not entirely unfounded as well, as all three of the NFL games played at Wembley in 2014 sold out, bringing in an estimated £3m per game. And with talks of a possible British NFL franchise only a few years away, the growth of American Football in Britain seems to be only just beginning.
For more information and further interviews listen to Alex Sheldon’s report below.
