The National Football League has been trying to expand its reach into Europe by hosting games in England, and our own Joe Prince-Wright hit up the Spurs’ training ground as the Buffalo Bills and Tottenham Hotspur hung out with school children as part of the NFL’s “Play 60" campaign.
One of the things discussed: the popularity of the NFL and MLS in Europe. Not surprisingly, television helps.
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It’s common sense, but when players like Toby Alderweireld -- who has played at Saints and Atletico Madrid, too -- take at Major League Soccer games, they see the quality and improvement first-hand.
From JPW’s NBC SportsWorld piece, “A True Football Mixer”:
Will it? Yes. But grow into something big? Hard to say. While many of us are born American football fans here, it is one of the more difficult sports to learn as a fan, at least in terms of its many, many rules that are enforced in sometimes vague fashion, let alone the stop-start nature of the sport in contrast to soccer.
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Although putting a team in London would certainly help to invest to English community in the sport. Perhaps that’s the real move the NFL must make next in order to grow.