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Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy has revealed that it is out of the club's control to have an NFL franchise in London as talks remain ongoing over strategic ways to agree on a naming rights deal for the stadium. It comes one week after Spurs agreed an extension of their partnership with the American football league over hosting matches in England.
Spurs are already the official 'Home of the NFL' in the UK and host a minimum of two games per season at the impressive Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That will now continue until the 2029/30 season as a method of maintaining positive relationships with the league as well as bringing in more fans and revenue.
However, despite some calls for an NFL franchise to be made in London, Levy remained pretty coy on the idea. Speaking at a two-hour meeting with the Tottenham Hotspur Fan Advisory Board the English businessman fielded questions from a select group including one relating to the potential NFL future.
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Although a full transcript is not available, the minutes of the meeting state that Levy 'agreed this was a logical next step but explained that it is not in the club's control.' It comes after the league's head of Europe and UK, Brett Gosper, revealed earlier this year that there are constant talks over the possibility of creating a team in the English capital.
“That would be the next phase of the strategy is to have a franchise here,” he said, speaking at SportsPro Live in April. “It’s a discussion point within the NFL on a pretty constant basis. Nothing is imminent here and I always say that.”
He added: “We’ve even heard the [NFL] commissioner [Roger Goodell] talk about having a division in Europe. [The] commissioners talked about having two teams. He thinks this market could support two teams, which it could, that Germany could support two teams.
“In some ways, it’s probably an easier logistical thing than having one team come into London, which will create all sorts of logistical challenges. Having a whole division here playing through the season, until the playoff period, might be an easier lift. In other ways, it’s a much harder lift because you’ve got to find four teams.”
However, he did admit that a European league in itself was still a possibility but not yet on a timeline. “There is certainly that ambition within the NFL to take the next step, which is to have a presence outside of the United States at some point in time," he continued..
“I can’t give you a timeline on that, but I can definitely say there’s an ambition.” It is understandable, therefore, that Levy and Tottenham are at the forefront of those conversations given their track record.
Spurs have been hosting games at their new multi-purpose stadium since it opened in 2019 and have so far had six games since their move from White Hart Lane. NFL games in England and London do have a loner history though, first going back to 2007 and a match at Wembley.
Since then it has been the country's national stadium and the occasional match at Twickenham has been the most popular international venue for NFL fixtures. For Spurs, the trust and continued deal with the NFL is a major coup and only goes to work towards increasing their revenue.
It is through these funds that they will be able to move forward as a sustainable and efficient football club, something that Levy and Chief Commercial Officer Todd Kline were keen to reiterate. The focus of the commercial department, headed by Kline, included 'working to optimise investment to date and to accelerate the growth of the Club via three key areas: sponsorship, retail, membership' as well a optimising stadium-related opportunities and accelerating growth.
Levy added the key objective for the club was to 'to deliver revenues to fund a sustainable, successful football club consistently competing at the top level.' Via the NFL boost and a potential new stadium naming partner, Spurs would take another leap ahead of Arsenal and Chelsea in this department.
It is a unique chance for Spurs given the dearth of matches in this country and it has allowed them to create somewhat of a mini-monopoly on the specific UK-NFL market. Alongside big-name gigs at the ground, Tottenham are a long way ahead of their rivals in this sense and it is key towards remaining financially competitive after such a big summer.
Spurs released the figures for the summer window which included £253.7milllion ($314.4m) on new players. To somewhat offset that they also sold Harry Kane for around £80million ($99m), as part of a big summer for incoming revenue from player sales as well.
In order to leave themselves with room to spare after missing out on the luxurious financial benefits of Champions League football, it was a necessity at this time.
