Daniel Levy, the owner of Tottenham Hotspur, went ahead everyone in England as they anticipate the success of the NFL in Europe and sign a ten-year contract to host European matches at their stadium and to avoid that the enormous economic benefit of these was divided between other fields of London.
The play was masterful for Levy and for the ‘Spurs’, who charge a fixed fee for giving up the stadium every year and make sure to receive the full income of what is consumed inside the stadium.
That is to say, everything that the more than 120,000 people who pass through Tottenham Hotspur Stadium during the two annual games bought, would go to the coffers of Levy and his team.
For this reason, the London club emphasizes promoting the NFL when the sport leaves the United States for the United Kingdom. Transform your store, change the theme and boost the NFL. Instead of finding Harry Kane and Heung-min Son jerseys in every corner, scarves, helmets, footballs and the names of Kyle Pitts of the Atlanta Falcons and Zach Wilson of the New York Jets are more common.
It is estimated that around 90% of the store is dedicated to the NFL and the other 10% to Tottenham on the days there is a football game in London.
To this must be added the sponsorships that have raised Tottenham above other teams in England and that have their echo in the United States, where the ‘Spurs, by the way, already won the International Cup in 2018. His stadium is the only one in England that appears in the video game ‘Madden 22’ and just two weeks ago, in preparation for the London games, two Tottenham kits were added.
This allows Tottenham to spread its brand in the American country at levels that other clubs could not or did not see viable in their day.. In the most purely economic, the NFL allows the ‘Spurs’ to monetize the games in a way that is unthinkable and impossible in the Premier League.
The ‘anti hooligans’ regulations of the English competition prevent alcoholic beverages from being consumed during a football game, but not in one of the NFL, as well as in other sports in the United Kingdom, where The sounds of uncorked bottles are common between the points of Wimbledon, for example.
While in the Premier you can only drink at half-time, and only outside the stands, in the NFL it is not like that and the income from the sale of beer and food, whose value during an NFL game can exceed a million pounds, is taken entirely by the club.
It’s no wonder, therefore, that when Levy saw the potential of the sport he went for it. And that he signed the agreement with the NFL in 2017, ten years after the first game in London in 2007. Since then, 30 have been played in the English capital.
But Levy had a cornerstone to build on, a new stadium that offered mechanics and tools that even Wembley, London’s biggest NFL game field, doesn’t have.
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Since its construction it was interpreted that it would not be dedicated only to football, but also to the world of entertainment, with concerts, boxing evenings, like the recent fight between Anthony Joshua and Oleksandr Usyk and, above all, the NFL.
At Wembley, the turf used for football and soccer was the same, leaving unfortunate scenes like a 2018 match between Manchester City and Tottenham with the field completely washed away and with the NFL lines still visible. This was taken into account in the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, so a mechanism was implemented capable of exchanging the natural grass with which football is played for one made of artificial grass.
The artificial waits 1.6 meters below the natural one, which is divided into three parts and is stored, thanks to the work of 204 electric motors, under the south stand. This only takes 25 minutes, leaving the field ready for the game to begin and without damaging the natural grass.
Tottenham’s involvement does not end here, but they also reached an agreement with the NFL to establish an American football academy in North London., aimed at boys between 16 and 18 years old who want to combine education with an intense training program with professional trainers.
In total, it is estimated that the economic impact of the NFL in London exceeds 300 million pounds (334 million euros) and therefore it is not surprising that other cities, especially German and French, have already set their sights on this sport. With the ambition to host up to four games a year outside the borders of the United States, the race begins to see who catches the NFL’s golden goose, the one Daniel Levy spotted four years ago now.
