By Ismail Uddin
National Football League (NFL) UK Managing Director Alistair Kirkwood believes the organisation is on the right path to accommodate a London-based franchise and the recent support of the owners will help with that plan.
Wembley was the host yesterday as the Minnesota Vikings beat the Pittsburgh Steelers 34-27 and will also host the Jacksonville Jaguars against the San Francisco 49ers on October 27th. It will be the first time that London has hosted two games and reveals the potential for a future franchise on UK shores.
In the past New England Patriots Chairman Robert Kraft and recently San Francisco 49ers Chairman John York talked up the possibility of an NFL franchise in London and Kirkwood believes only good things could happen in building a franchise if you have the owners support.
He told iSportconnect: “I think it is really exciting when ownership publicly talks because I remember before we even staged our first game, the presentations we did to the commissioner’s office and senior management talking about if we could achieve success then maybe at some point we could do something like having a London franchise in the very long term and even though I was the one presenting it felt very ‘pie in the sky’ to think about it.
“But now we are almost half way through the journey in terms of the number of games we have played and the growth of the fan base and commercial partnerships. It’s really heartening to have senior owners talk about this publicly and it ratifies what we are doing and gives us further inspiration to keep working hard on it.
“I still say there is quite a lot of work to do before we can get to a stage where we can decide if that would be the right approach. But the very fact that owners are coming out and saying that it is something they want to do it means we must be doing something right.”
But Kirkwood, who helped bring the NFL International Series to London in 2007, did reiterate there are still a number of issues that need to be resolved before a potential franchise is condsidered.
“There are loads of issues to be honest. Building a franchise is a completely different proposition to what we are doing right now. Just now we are playing games where teams are getting bye weeks the week after so it is not just as simple as saying ‘ok we are playing two games this or three games this year now let’s increase it to eight games’. You will actually have to look at the whole structure and not only how it will affect the team coming over here but also all the other teams in the league.
“But on the other side of it, it is not about the details it about trying to prove that the sport is gaining in popularity to the extent that we can actually sustain a franchise. My role is to not actually say we should or we shouldn’t, my role is to build up the popularity and the viability so the owners can look at it and go ‘that something we want to do’ or not.”
“I am spending my time making sure the TV and commercial are the most successful as possible because the more successful we are the more likely those conversations will take place.”
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