The decision has been made! On Thursday, the NFL announced which teams will start their trip to London in the 2018 season – next to the annual Jacksonville Jaguars, there will be other stunners in the autumn in the city on the Thames! The Seattle Seahawks and Jon Grudens Raiders will be there.
The League announced that these three pairings will take place in the capital of England in 2018. For the first time, the Tottenham Hotspur will also be played in the stadium, marking the start of a long-term partnership.
The complete NFL schedule with all games including the exact schedule for the two Wembley games will be released in mid-April.
The London Games are part of the NFL International Series. Within the framework of this event, regular season matches will be played outside the USA. For the NFL and its teams, this is the ideal opportunity to position themselves even better on the European market. For fans on the continent, it’s the chance to watch NFL matches live on location – without having to travel to the States.
In the past, however, the International Series was not only aimed at Europe. She made her debut on 2. October 2005 at the Aztec Stadium in Mexico City. At that time, the Arizona Cardinals won 31:14 against the San Francisco 49ers. In 2016 and 2017, the NFL once again made a guest appearance in the Mexican capital: In 2016, the Oakland Raiders beat the Houston Texans by 27:20, and last season it broke down the patriots for the Raiders in the south of the USA.
And the league is also planning for the long term in Mexico: during the past regular season, it was announced that Mexico City will host one match a year until 2021.
Year after year there are rumours again, whether a franchise will move permanently to the city on the Thames – especially the Jacksonville Jaguars, who voluntarily give up home games every year to play in London, are regarded as a hot candidate.
Mark Waller, NFL Vice President for International Affairs and Events, reaffirmed his desire for a franchise in Europe at the end of September:”When we started in 2007, I said it was a 15-year project. This seemed to be a time frame that was supposed to work. The step should be perfectly feasible in the next four or five years.”
At the end of 2016, Waller had already emphasized in an interview with SPOX:”When a team owner decides that the time is ripe, the market will be ready, even if progress can hardly be seen from the outside. But when the step comes, it will happen very quickly. Look at L. A. If you had said four years ago that we now have a team that is about to move to a new stadium there, nobody would have believed that it could go so fast – after all, nothing has happened for many years.”
At the same time, however, it is also true that with the relocations of the Chargers and Rams (both to Los Angeles) and the Raiders (to Las Vegas), many things have changed in recent years. It is quite conceivable that those responsible would like to bring peace and quiet back into the league.
Tickets are available at www.ticketmaster.co.uk and Viagogo. The NFL publishes concrete information about the ticket sales itself, all information can be found here.
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