NFL considering a future London Super Bowl?
As the NFL has established it’s dominance as America’s most favorite and closely-followed sport, executives from the league have more aggressively begun to pursue international markets.
Over the past few seasons we have seen several pre-season and regular season games in both Mexico City and London, as the NFL starts to test the waters for future potential expansion.
Is it possible that the NFL would consider playing a Super Bowl overseas– in London in particular? Many reports are pointing toward it being a real possiblity.
According to Jim Irsay, Indiapolis Colts owner, the NFL Competition Committee has discussed the possiblity:
“There’s a little bit of change in philosophy. We have the 50-year anniversary coming up, which we’re looking at. There are some members of our committee who have been thinking about having an international Super Bowl in London. That obviously has some real pluses and minuses if you weren’t going to have it on America soil. Right now, we’re in a wait-and-see approach.”
Logistically, an overseas Super Bowl could be a nightmare. Ensuring that teams are able to get comfortable in a completely foreign (pardon the pun) environment would be the first problem.
Making sure that the time difference which the game would present for American fans– especially if played in London– would also be a substantial challenge for the league and a potential obstacle in securing the advertisers the game usually attracts due to the diminished number of eyeballs.
Making the Super Bowl an international spectacle, however, could be just the push the NFL needs to finally earn some legitimacy overseas in countries where it has been previously dismissed for soccer and other favored national pastimes.
For now, the notion of having a Super Bowl in London seems awfully pie-in-the-sky, but it’s apparent that it’s being considered nonetheless.
Will a new generation of owners, who are less risk-averse, be the ones to pull the trigger on taking the game across the pond?
We’ll certainly find out in the years to come.
