Tottenham Hotspur are building a brand new state of the art facility to replace the historically charming, but aging poorly White Hart Lane. It’s scheduled to open in August of 2018. America’s Game, the National Football League continues to aggressively push itself into the city of London; so the new venue in the works, it certainly a natural marriage in the making.
Just today, it was revealed that Mark Waller, the NFL’s executive vice president of international and Tottenham Hotspur Chairman Daniel Levy truly have designs on playing NFL football and Premier League football on the same exact day in this very same exact venue.
Here’s a link to more on that. This would all seem like a proverbial, logical next step to getting a NFL franchise in London. Various outlets, including the Sun and the London Times have reported the NFL’s designs on getting a franchise to play in the venue.
A year ago, then mayor Boris Johnson said that the city had such ambitions.
Tottenham reveal new designs for £400million stadium… including three tunnels,… http://t.co/Qfi7fNVt65 #COYS pic.twitter.com/AS4dWItN2B
— Tottenham Hotspur News (@_THFC_) September 23, 2015
Take a look at the latest developments from our new stadium site and White Hart Lane, in pictures… #COYS pic.twitter.com/Ru8NIMm3Jn
— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) July 29, 2016
Over the years, the NFL continues expanding it’s London schedule of games, including adding more meaningful intra-divisional contests.
Levy is very much on board with the initiative. Levy has previously said the NFL is involved in “every aspect” of the club’s new stadium.
“I have lived and breathed this project from Day One,” Levy is quoted in ESPN FC.
“It is absolutely my ambition to make this work. When I first started talking about it internally at the club, again, I think people around me thought I was mad as well. I guess it’s my tenacity to get it done because there were many times with the NFL where there wasn’t going to be an arrangement. We just kept going back and saying, ‘What about this? What about that?’
“When we first went to them, we went to them with the idea of a joint stadium in some shape or form without going through all the details at that stage.”
“As we sat down and we went through all the operations, we worked out, ‘What does the NFL need? What does soccer need?’ Basically we had a checklist of all the various things we wanted to achieve, and then at the end of the day it was the best solution.
“It’s not an easy solution, and we’ve had lots of technologies involved with the design and the various prototypes because not only do we have to get the surface right for the NFL but it also has to be right for soccer.”
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.