The NFL is continuing to ramp up their presence in London by announcing today that four regular season games will be played in the British capital next year. Two will be in Wembley Stadium and two in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The National Football League announcement comes just two days after the Jacksonville Jaguars and Philadelphia Eagles completed the third NFL contest in London in three straight weeks.
The NFL has been staging games in London for 11 seasons now and the increasing momentum points to the possibility of a London Super Bowl and/or London NFL franchise in the near future. The three games this season, all at Wembley Stadium, had an average crowd of 85,031.
“The games in the past few weeks have once again demonstrated the incredible passion of NFL fans in the UK,” reads a statement attributed to Mark Waller, NFL Executive Vice President.
“The support of our stadium partners, the Mayor of London and the Minister for Sport gives us a great foundation for further development of the sport and the ability to give our fans even more NFL games in the coming years.”
The NFL did say which for teams would be playing in the mother country in 2019.
It’s been made abundantly clear that the NFL wants to make their UK home the new Tottenham Stadium, with its two playing surfaces technology and capability (one for NFL football, one for Spurs) instead of Wembley. One game had been scheduled for the venue this season, but construction delays, and the required safety tests that follow, delayed the building’s opening and it wasn’t ready in time.
As it stands now, Spurs are still hopeful they will get their new home up and running before the calendar flips to 2019. Obviously, the NFL would like to get that party started too.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, regularly appears as a guest pundit on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
He also contributes sociopolitical essays to Lineups.com and Chicago Now. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. The content of his cat’s Instagram account is unquestionably superior to his.