A potential London NFL franchise is a hypothetical National Football League (NFL) American football team based in London, formed as a new expansion team or by relocating one of the existing 32 NFL teams currently based in the United States. Should the league establish a team in London, it would become the first of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada to establish a franchise outside either of those two countries.
A London NFL franchise would be intended to grow the league's revenues and provide further access to the British and European markets. However, the agreement of league owners is needed to undertake an expansion or relocation, and a London franchise would face financial, legal and logistical challenges. Possible home stadiums for the London team include one or more of Wembley Stadium, Twickenham Stadium or Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Since 2007, the league has held multiple regular season games in London each season as part of the NFL International Series, allowing the league to test solutions to some of the challenges facing a hypothetical London franchise.
Background
Although American football in the United Kingdom has historically been a niche sport, British interest in the NFL was piqued in 1982, when Channel 4 began to show game highlights, and London began to host preseason games, beginning with the American Bowl in 1986.
From 1991, the city hosted the London Monarchs in the league's developmental World League of American Football (WLAF), initially based out of the original Wembley Stadium, at which they won World Bowl '91 to become the inaugural champions. Following the 1992 season, the World League disbanded: however, after a restructuring that removed the North American teams, the League returned for 1995, and London gained a British rival with the creation of the Scottish Claymores, based at Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh. The Monarchs, meanwhile, left Wembley Stadium for reasons of cost, size and availability, and the team's home games were played at Tottenham Hotspur's White Hart Lane in the 1995 and 1996 seasons. White Hart Lane's field was only 93 yards long – nowhere near large enough to hold a full 120-yard field and end zones – so the WLAF had to grant an exemption from the usual rules. London left Tottenham one game early, playing their 1996 season closer at Chelsea's Stamford Bridge before moving there for the entirety of the 1997 WLAF season.
The WLAF became NFL Europe from the 1998 season, the year sweeping changes were brought to the UK teams. As the Monarchs rebranded to England Monarchs, playing at various venues across the country (Crystal Palace National Sports Centre in London, Bristol City's Ashton Gate and Alexander Stadium, an athletics stadium in Birmingham), the Scots' team began playing across not only Murrayfield but Hampden Park in Glasgow too. However, as all NFL Europe franchises outside Germany and the Netherlands, both British teams were ultimately relocated due to lack of public interest: Monarchs bound for Berlin for 1999, while the Claymores moved to Glasgow permanently from 2001 (save for one game in the 2002 season) before heading for Hamburg in 2004. The League would become NFL Europa for the final season in 2007.
Popular interest in the sport waned with the growth of the Association football Premier League in the 1990s, although it grew again from 2007 following the establishment of the International Series. It also led to steady increases in actual participation in amateur games.
Mechanics An affirmative vote of three-quarters of the owners of the NFL's 32 clubs is required before a new team can be created (known as expansion) or before an existing team is allowed to move to a new market (known as relocation), i.e. 24 or more clubs would have to approve of the decision.
According to The Guardian, as of 2015 it was "well-known" that a London franchise was a goal of NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, although "he tends to avoid specifics on the process to make that happen". The NFL's Executive Vice President International Mark Waller was more specific, expressing the goal as "to build a fanbase that would be able to support a franchise". According to Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank speaking in 2014, "The approach that the international committee and the commissioner have taken is, 'Let's do London right, and then move from there to potentially somewhere else'."
Expansion franchise
In the opinion of former NFL executive Jim Bailey, the NFL would probably prefer to create a London-based franchise through the expansion route, since that would offer them more control over the process. According to CBS, however, as of 2012 the club owners were generally satisfied with the league's 32 team model, and would prefer a relocation. According to the Associated Press, the 32-team model is seen as advantageous as it offers "competitively balanced schedules and division alignments". CBS also argued that expansion teams generally struggle "for quite some time", suggesting a relocated team would be the better option from the standpoint of competitiveness.
Speaking in 2012, Goodell responded positively to the prospect of creating new teams through expansion "in the foreseeable future." At that time, it was speculated that the US market was saturated, and so it was unlikely that an expansion team within the US would generate the NFL's desired growth without a fundamental change in their funding model, such as the introduction of pay-per-view TV (which was also seen as unlikely since the league's existing broadcasting contracts ran to 2022).
Shared franchise According to NFL.com, one possible way to achieve a London franchise in a way that overcomes the various issues facing a London operation, which has been considered by team owners and NFL executives, is the possibility of a shared franchise, with the team playing four home games in London and four in the US, although this was not considered ideal as it could potentially weaken the appeal given the split fanbase and ultimately not achieve critical mass, in addition it would be unlikely to be attractive to London fans if it were assumed in that scenario that any such team would always play its postseason games in its US base. Speaking in 2015, Waller stated "we've never had real discussions about a shared market".
Relocating a franchise
Jacksonville Jaguars
As the designated home team for the International Series, the Jacksonville Jaguars are often mentioned as the most likely existing NFL team to relocate to London, leaving their current home of EverBank Stadium in Florida. It is often pointed out in support that current Jaguars owner Shahid Khan is himself based in London, and also owns Fulham F.C. While Khan admits playing home games in London has been a success in terms of improving the finances and profile of what was a small and struggling franchise, he has nonetheless been reluctant to commit to a move, preferring the current arrangement. On March 27, 2017, it was reported by City A.M. that the Jaguars were in discussion to build a permanent training facility near Wembley Stadium. If done, the team would be the first NFL franchise to have a training facility built outside of the U.S. On April 26, 2018, it was reported that Khan had made an offer to The Football Association to buy Wembley Stadium, although he subsequently rescinded that offer.
Franchises with market knowledge As well as the Jacksonville Jaguars, the fact that some other existing franchises have owners with knowledge of the British market due to also owning United Kingdom based sports teams, such as the Glazer family's ownership of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers based in Tampa, Florida and Manchester United leads to them being suggested as potential relocation candidates. Up until their move to Los Angeles was announced in January 2016, this also included the former St. Louis Rams owned by Arsenal F.C.'s majority shareholder, Stan Kroenke.
Franchises with short leases The fact that the Jacksonville Jaguars have a short term lease on its stadium is also often used to support media speculation that the franchise may be the one to relocate to London. This was also the case for the former St. Louis Rams and San Diego Chargers until their respective moves to Los Angeles in 2016 and 2017 (even so, although the Rams own both teams' current home of SoFi Stadium and are almost certain to stay in Los Angeles for the long-term, the Chargers are leasing that stadium and have not yet established a fan base, leaving open the possibility for another relocation),Chargers, NFL reportedly considering relocating franchise to London on permanent basis amid L.A. failures by Will Brinson from CBS Sports, November 5, 2019 and the former Oakland Raiders until relocation to Las Vegas was approved in 2017.
The Raiders, lacking a stadium for 2019, were said to have an "extreme long shot" at playing all of their home games in London that year, should all other options fail. Cost and logistics concerns made this scenario unlikely, and the Raiders ultimately decided to renew their agreement with the Oakland Coliseum after initially stating they would not do so.Raiders most likely to play in Bay Area in 2019 at the stadium of either 49ers or Giants. CBS Sports. Retrieved January 12, 2019.
Weaker franchises As happened with the Buffalo Bills in 2014, even franchises with relatively long lease agreements but which are otherwise seen as struggling in their own market, are often named by the media as potential candidates for relocation to London, on the basis that those advocating relocation to a more lucrative market would be offering more money than those proposing to stay put. In the specific case of the Bills, it was however suggested that the NFL would oppose relocation since they were the only NFL team which played in New York state (the New York Jets and New York Giants being located in a shared stadium, the MetLife Stadium in New Jersey). The Bills constructed New Highmark Stadium, which ties the team to the Buffalo area for 30 years.
Multiple franchises Given the size of London, it has been suggested by Atlanta Falcons owner Arthur Blank that there could ultimately be more than one franchise located in London, although not before a team in another European country.
During a press conference on October 8, 2022, the day before that year's second International Series game in London, Commissioner Goodell indicated that London – and all of Europe – could get at least two franchises and as much as a four-team division, saying: "There's no question that London could support not just one franchise, I think two franchises. We're trying to sort of see, could you have multiple locations in Europe where you could have an NFL franchise? Because it would be easier as a division."
Potential stadiums One potential advantage for London as a market for an NFL franchise is that all of the likely stadiums for the franchise have already been built, with two of them being built in the 21st century and having sufficient modern amenities to host such a team. This eliminates the expense, currently over $1 billion, of constructing a stadium for the team that meets NFL specifications.
Wembley Stadium
Wembley Stadium, England's national association football stadium, was rebuilt and re-opened in 2007, and was the first venue for International Series games in that same year. It was built with locker rooms which are twice the size usually found in soccer venues, which allows them to accommodate a 53-man NFL roster.