NFL London Games An Expense Too High For Many

NFL LONDON GAMES AN EXPENSE TOO HIGH FOR MANY

By Thomas Willoughby

The NFL coming to London is special. It has been since day one. What began as a one-off international experiment in 2007 has blossomed into a key part of the league’s calendar. It’s success has spun off into all corners of the globe, with games in Brazil, Ireland, Germany, and Spain being played out this season alone, in addition to the three games in London. The NFL has truly gone global, and it has London to thank for giving it the platform to.

And that, in no small part, can be attributed to the fans. Yes, there’s an element of “build it and they will come”, but you actually need them to come to justify the building. It’s a chicken and egg thing, I guess, but you can’t really have one without the other. If the NFL put on a game at Wembley Stadium in 2007 and 35000 showed up, we wouldn’t have had another one in 2008, let alone 3 a year 15 years later. The games overseas generate interest and, yes, cash, but that interest and cash comes from, well, the fans.

A Sea of Empty Seats

I was on a ticket site this week, and thought I’d have a look and see what the ticket situation for this seasons London games was. What I saw stunned me. Hundreds, potentially thousands, of tickets still available, from the original release batch. You usually get a handful made available the week of a game, but this isn’t that. These are tickets released in May that have yet to sell. That feels…not good.

For the uninitiated, let me bring you up to speed. From day one, these games have sold out. Or have come extremely close to selling out. Production configurations within grounds obviously affects just how many tickets can be sold game to game, hence the fluctuating attendance figures. But, for the most part, the only way you could get a ticket the week of a game was on the second hand market, or lucking out with a mate having a spare. In 2025, you can buy one, at face value, on the day.

That’s quite the shift from where we’ve been to date. The scramble on ticket release day is a gross, incredibly stressful situation to be in. That’s not just with the NFL, by the way, that’s just any event. One of my favourite bands announced some (long overdue) UK shows earlier this year, and the panic I experienced trying to get in was something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. But that didn’t happen this year with the NFL. It was serene for those who wanted in. Yes, there were queues, but those queues didn’t translate to sales. And It became obvious early on why that was.

Tin Foil Hat Time

I’ve seen a few theories why this might be. A popular one is the end of the season ticket scheme, where you could secure a seat to every game, and renew it year to year. It secured a base of around 40000 fans for each game, which meant tickets for these games were available for 3 times as many fans as usual. Except tickets are still available. I’m not quite sure what effect this has had on sales other than annoying a few people.

The second, and I think silliest, is that the NFL’s priority is with influencers and celebrities rather than REAL FANS. This feels like an “old man shouts at cloud” reason. Because why would someone you and I have never heard of, who is inexplicably massive on YoutTube, getting a box to a game result in hundreds of tickets being unsold? Is it a boycott thing? Are we boycotting the Sidemen?

No, the real reason is far more simple and obvious. It’s because the price of entry is absolutely extortionate.

Inflation, inflation, inflation

Nine categories, starting at £72, and topping out at £230, plus administrative and booking fees. That’s a lot of money! A peek into the life of Thomas Willoughby; I held season tickets for the games at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium from 2019 until 2023, in “category 7” seating. Those seats (which are the cheapest still available at the time of writing) are valued at £130 a ticket, plus fees. Last year, those seats would have set you back £88. In 2023, £82. In 2022, £77. You see the issue.

The rationale, I’m sure, will be something to the effect of it’s an event! A day out! £150 to give your kid a memory that’ll stick with them for the rest of your life? A bargain! Except it isn’t. We established last year that these are games. Like, actual league games, and attended as such. And, as we discussed at the top of the piece, these are part of the calendar. They lost the “event” tag about 15 years ago. It almost feels as if the NFL is trying to make up for lost time, wrapping the cost around the games after it would have been an understandable figure to charge.

The biggest shock is the size of the increase. I think most of us are expecting (and accepting, to an extent) things to be more expensive than they were the year before. As long as it’s reasonable, we’ll grumble, but accept it and move on. For someone sat in block 520 in 2024, being presented with a £42 price increase, nearly 50% more than you paid last season, is quite the pill to swallow. And, at a period in time where literally everything is getting more expensive every few months, that sort of increase simply isn’t palatable for a lot of us.

Stale Slate

There is another factor, I think, and that is that half the sides that are playing in London this season came here last year too. The Jaguars are here very year, so that’s to be expected. But both the Vikings and the Jets played at London last season. Against each other, no less! In fact, since the London games restarted post-Covid in 2021, both the Jets and the Vikings have played twice. The Denver Broncos last played in London in 2022. The Jaguars have played six games here since then, for those keeping score. If you want to stretch back a little further, the Rams played here in 2019. Every single side on this year’s slate has been here relatively recently. It all feels a bit…samey.

For fans of those teams, that’s fabulous. I, personally, would love the opportunity to watch the Falcons live every other year without having to leave the country. For the rest of you, though, that’d get quite stale quite quickly. And I wonder if having the same teams from the past few years, combined with the increased entry fee, has simply made it a far less attractive proposition for the neutral. Variety is the spice of life, after all.

Wallet Watching

But fans would pay to see these games regardless of the fixture if the price was right. And, in 2025, the price is not right. The NFL is at a bit of a crossroads going into next season. The right thing to do, for me, would be to decrease the prices next season so they’re in line with the 5%-ish rise it’s followed basically forever. Capitalism doesn’t work like that, sadly, so the best I think we can hope for is for a price freeze. Either way, it feels like the decision makers have clearly overestimated what is and isn’t acceptable for your average punter.

A common retort made to those vocalising their concerns about the prices of tickets is “if you don’t like it, don’t pay, no one’s forcing you to go”. It appears NFL fans in the UK have taken that advice on board, and are voting with their wallets. If, at 2.30pm on Sunday afternoon, you see rows of empty seats, know it’s not because we don’t love the game anymore. We do, more so than ever. It’s because we were priced out of entering the party.

Features Image Credit: nfl.com

THOMAS IS A WRITER, AND REGULAR GUEST ON THE TOUCHDOWN REVIEW SHOW PODCAST, FOR THE TOUCHDOWN. YOU CAN FIND HIM @WILLO290592 ON TWITTER

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