Is American football destined to touchdown in the UK?

As the fun and relaxation of the Christmas period starts to fade away, and we begin to look forward to another jam-packed year of sport, a number of sporting storylines look ready to grab our attention.

Whether it be the race for the Premier League title, readying ourselves for the Six Nations championship, or tuning into the Australian Open at stupid o’clock in the morning to watch Andy Murray and co. slave away in the Melbourne sun, we, the British public, have become well accustomed to a long-established diet of sport.

Our viewing habits haven’t really changed in decades, and there are many of us who like it that way.

As I try to stare into the sporting crystal ball, however, and look at how this country’s sporting interests may change in the future, I can’t help but see American football elbowing its way into our daily lives.

Surely it wouldn’t be totally far-fetched to predict that every national newspaper will soon have pages dedicated to the sport, and a slew of correspondents reporting back across the pond each week on the latest news from the NFL, perhaps in 15 years or so.

On a more grassroots level, many towns or cities might have their own amateur American football teams in the same way that they have Association football teams each possessing a several thousand strong fan base following their team both home and away.

Whilst it would be foolhardy to say that the sport will ever surpass rugby or football in popularity, a substantially elevated public image will almost certainly become the reality. Don’t just take my word for it though.

This season, both regular NFL season games held in London sold out within hours of going on sale. Since the first competitive game was played in London in 2007, viewing figures for American football related programming in this country has more than doubled.

Despite some problems, one cannot help but be optimistic for the future of American football in the UK

The internet boom has evidently helped the sport’s profile grow massively, with live feeds, updates and analysis from college and NFL games being so instantaneous that it has rendered domestic and international fans as one and the same. Sales of NFL jerseys in the UK have likewise seen a significant spike.

To cut a long story short, the British fan base has never been stronger. With three more regular season games planned for next season, and a verbal commitment from NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to continue to build the league’s fan base in Europe, it appears as if the only way is up for the sport’s profile in this country.

With awareness of the sport at such an unprecedented rise, a handful of British fans and reporters have even called for an NFL team to be based permanently in the UK in the near future. Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shahid Khan’s recent purchase of Premier League football club Fulham has led many to believe that the Jaguars could relocate to London within the next few years, but such an eventuality is ultimately improbable.

Considering the logistical issues of transporting teams across the Atlantic every week, as well as the fact that domestic cities such as Los Angeles provide a much safer bet for franchises looking to relocate, it could be more than a decade before the big brass in the NFL even begin to consider the possibility of moving a team to London.

Despite this, one cannot help but be optimistic for the future of American football in the UK. And when I say this I don’t simply mean that there will be more of us tuning in to watch the games every Sunday evening.

The sport has already made its impact on Britain’s sports fields, with American football participation at amateur level increasing by an average of about 13% per year since 2007. Whilst a national weekly participation level of 30,000 is evidently a far cry from levels recorded in the more well-established sports, it is on a marked rise, with more than 70 British universities now laying claim to a fully-kitted American football team and many seven-a-side ‘flag’ (non contact) youth teams cropping up across the country.

When considering that the first ever teams were only established on these shores in the mid 1980’s, you begin to realise just how much this sport has grown in such a short space of time.

It will indeed be an uphill battle for American football to be accepted in the UK. After all, it emerged as a hybrid of rugby and football in the late nineteenth century, and many consider the Americans to have meshed together the very characteristics of these sports that make them unique; amalgamating them into a bizarre discipline that is both hard on the eyes and even harder to understand.

Yet American football will continue to grow in this country, to the point where even those who think a gridiron is a type of barbeque grill will be conscious of its rumblings from across the Atlantic.