What do you mean? They come up to Old Trafford every two weeks to see their team play.

On a more serious note, the Tottenham ground has far worse transportation links and from what I've heard is not particularly close to a tube station. The only reason I feel the NFL have done this is cost or, and it's a big or, there trailing this is a ground for a permanent London NFL team.

...other than the games they show on Monday and Thursday nights, of course....

Then they will be quite annoyed once they find out that, as Ginger Daddy says, they have bought the rights for the Monday night games to the end of the 2019 season, to go along with the Thursday night ones they have always shown.


I doubt Manchester United would be happy with the NFL knocking down one of the ends of the ground to make the space for an NFL field, though.

Although the maximum length of a soccer pitch can be 130 yards, the normal size is between 110 and 115 yards. All Premier League ones are around this range.

Unlike in NFL Europe the league are not going to accept reduced fields for a full NFL game. Because of this only the national rugby and multi-use stadiums tend to have a long enough pitch to fit an NFL field as well as a large enough capacity.

So currently only Wembley, Twickenham, the Olympic Stadium, Millennium stadium, and Murrayfield are viable options.

I believe the main constraint as well as the pitch size is actually the locker rooms. Most football grounds are designed for 20-25 people, whilst NFL requires 35-40 incl medics etc and more equipment space.

Or 50% of their games as I like to call it.

True, but the bigger stadiums usually have several conference rooms that are large enough to temporarily fit out as locker rooms etc.

It's more than that. There are 18 players in a PL squad, there are 46 in an NFL one. Plus the NFL teams seem to have far more coaches and trainers.

Simon Crosse who's a producer on NFL for C4 was doing some filming around the Andrew Luck visit to the UK this week. So that might be some indication that Channel 4 will extend (despite poor Wembley game figures). NFL gets a good if small advertising demographic audience.

Also, Germany's ProSeibenSat have just signed an extensive FTA NFL contract.

Vernon Kay has tweeted this evening that Channel 4 won't be showing any NFL this season


https://twitter.com/vernonkay/status/625754871472459777

Wow!!! Thats a surprise i have to say!
ITV?

Well, if anyone could put people off NFL he could.

I liked the live Monday night game, you could record that and watch it the next day, without all the studio rabbit.

With defense, offense and special teams, then there's bound to be a lot of coaches.

Does anyone think BT Sport will try and pick this up ? We really need a game on FTA imo but anything will do.

The logical move for BT Sport would have been to bid for Monday Night Football as that is shown in the US by its partner ESPN.

The Sunday night games are some of the best so Sky might be favourites to complete a clean sweep of live NFL coverage. Hard to know if ITV, BBC or C5 are interested given that we are talking a 1.30am to 5.00am game slot. Discovery might fancy it for Eurosport. We'll just have to wait and see I suppose - worst case scenario is that it doesn't air in the UK at all

Any chance NFL will give it away for free? Sure I recall BBC not paying for it and NFL just wanted some FTA exposure over here.

I guess they'll offer the Super Bowl, playoff highlights and Wembley games (live or highlights whichever they'd rather show) to the BBC like 2007-2012 and find a home for SNF somewhere else (NFLuk like having a student viewership on FTA).

Just wonder how political it might be for the BBC to start showing American sport (essentially showcasing it so 31 billionaires can try getting richer) at the same time losing a lot of other British sport rights. Even it is given to them for free.

Why would the be logical? Its unlikely a program at that time would drive subscriptions for them.

The NFL are desperate to build interest in the UK so somebody will get it, hopefully free to air

I mean it’s never been confirmed, but I think it was pretty much a given that Channel 4 never paid for the rights, and Channel 5 certainly didn’t in their final year, because the NFL are that keen to have some matches available free. I mean it’s debatable how many new viewers matches played between 1.30-5am ain the morning are going to bring to the sport, but it’s better than nothing.

SNF will end up somewhere, but the main stumbling block is the cost of having a studio around the many ad breaks. Even in the middle of the night, a mainstream FTA channel needs a studio to stop the few people that are watching from turning off.

I guess there's no chance that they'd just take the fees from the U.S. Broadcaster and use their studio guests? The commercials would be troublesome I suppose but they could just show a view of the stadium?

Or do NFL not provide a feed without commercials? What does the NFL Network do? I'm actually looking to pick up a subscription for that this season - is it worth it?

I think the big concern for the NFL would be that the Wembley games (and in future the possible Spurs new stadium games) and the Superbowl wouldnt be live on FTA TV in the UK.

The SNF games are less of a concern I imagine given the timeslot, I'm sure Sky would love to show these if they could given the marginal extra cost.

BT Sport shows plenty of live sport from the US in the early hours and has a committed College Football following. It would have been able to show ESPN's Monday Night NFL Countdown from 11pm in advance of the game and their half time show - plus it would be able to repeat the game during daytime and peak hours the following day etc. I daresay it would like to show more NFL support shows as well in the same way as it does for College Football.

I recall when ESPN America used to show ESPN's Sunday NFL Countdown between 3 and 6pm on a Sunday before Sky's live coverage. That was a great show - now seemingly stymied by Sky's NFL deal.

BT Sport would be a logical place for some NFL coverage precisely because it does have significant numbers of US Sports fans.

No. BT, Premier Sports and Sky (to a lesser extent) can get away with it because people have paid their subscriptions, and are likely to be seasoned fans of the sport who understand and accept that there will be loads of ad breaks. For a FTA broadcaster to do that would look ridiculously cheap and you’d get loads of the audience turning off, and even at 4 in the morning, no broadcaster is going to allow two minutes of static stadium shots on screen per 5-10 minutes of actual game footage. Cutting to ad breaks every single time has the same effect of turning viewers off, and would almost certainly break advertising laws.

Gutted about this. Hope someone else picks it up. I think Sky should just go for it, make the presenters work for their money.

Regardless of the unsociable kick off time, 'Sunday Night Football' is the premier game of the week. It's not always the best looking, but it is designed to be the biggest of the weekend, and to not have it on TV when we have everything else would be regrettable.

Sky could easily add it to their Sunday night schedule and turn it into a triple-header. There is no need to make the studio guests stay around. They could simply go straight to NBC's coverage of 'Football Night in America' and then just show NBC's coverage of the game. Yes, there are a lot of ad breaks, but there are also a lot of ad breaks in WWE Monday Night Raw, which Sky show live every week of the year. And there are lots of ad breaks in College Football games which BT/ESPN show.

Anyone up at 1am is a committed NFL fan and knows the score as regards to ad breaks. And those who record it and watch it the following day will not care as they'll Fast Forward through them.

Sky should take this if nobody else wants it.