NFL: Growing the UK Game – Alistair Kirkwood

 

There are also talks of bringing a third regular-season game to Wembley. How advanced are those discussions and will the Jaguars be hosting two games as part of that?

There have been lots of internal conversations for quite a while about it. There’s a lot of work involved in terms of getting team agreements for home and away teams and looking at schedules for next year and stadium availability as well. There is an awful lot of detail that goes into it. Every single year we have done this there have been twists and turns so whatever we thought we were going to do, whoever we thought we were going to have coming to games there has always been some sort of change. I like to think somewhere between the first and second game we will come to an agreement on what we are planning to do and maybe look to make an announcement around that second game or immediately afterwards. Whatever we come up with and come up announcing I think it will be a further sign of our commitment and growth in the market. 

The Jaguars have a long term deal to play at Wembley. If other teams were interested in a similar type of deal would you consider it?

There are always those type of conversations going on but at the moment out focus is on building the Jaguars brand up in the market. There are a number of things we will be doing in the next couple of months to make this further come to life. 

Recently 49ers Chairman John York and last year Patriots owner Robert Kraft talked up London’s chances to host an NFL Franchise. Are you as confident as them that London will have an NFL Franchise soon?

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. 

What are the current complex issues you are trying to iron out that is stopping a Franchise being set up here?

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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