College football in Yorkshire? Why local businessman wants to see touchdowns at Headingley

James Mason, who has spent his career working in business and sport, has a bold vision of seeing touchdown passes thrown at a sold-out stadiums in Yorkshire in events that would attract tens of thousands of visitors to the region from America and across Europe.

College football has already successfully landed in Dublin, with single events worth around 70 million euros to the region’s economy.

Mason, who tried to revive cycling’s Tour de Yorkshire in his time at Welcome to Yorkshire and backed The Yorkshire Post’s recent campaign for the North of England to unite to save the Commonwealth Games, is a believer in the power of major sporting events as a force for civic pride and economic benefit.

Now the chief executive of the West and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, he said: “I was in Dublin last autumn as Notre Dame overtook Ireland with 50,000 travelling fans. So why wouldn’t we want to think about bringing sports and other events that bring huge followings with them and the economic impact? Yorkshire has demonstrated its sporting ambitions in the past.

“In my current role we’re looking at ways to attract people to Yorkshire for one specific event but they stay for a week and eat in our restaurants, our hotels, take pictures that are shared across their networks.

“Whilst austerity is biting across local authorities, there are many businesses doing well.

“The current Minister for Sport, Stuart Andrew, is an MP for Pudsey and chaired a meeting between the Government and NFL UK in December looking at ways to grow the sport of American football in this country.

“So I would welcome anyone that would like to discuss this further. I’ve worked in the industry and I have established links with organisations in the USA and with contacts at colleges in the States, they’re going to put me in touch with the guys who organised the event in Dublin. This is something I have been thinking about for a long time.”

There is a precedent for college football coming over to these shores. Dublin’s Aviva Stadium hosted a game for the second time last August when Notre Dame played Navy in front of 49,000 fans, 39,000 of which were fans coming over from America. That game brought an estimated 69 million euros into the economy. This August, Dublin will host another game between Georgia Tech and Florida State.

American sports expanding their frontiers is nothing new. The NFL has been playing games in London since 2007, expanded that into Germany in 2022 and in the next two years will have games played in Brazil and Spain. Baseball’s MLB now regularly hosts a double-header at the Olympic Stadium.

Dublin’s staging of college football games was supported by a major headline sponsor, which any venture centred around Yorkshire would also require. There would be other logistical challenges, but Mason believes it is worth exploring.

“I acknowledge stadium size is a challenge, but that’s not how businesses work; you prove the concept and then you build on that,” he said.

“Headingley cricket stadium would be big enough to host, but why keep the conversation at that? It could be baseball, ice hockey or basketball. Let’s not build up the reasons why not, let’s look at the art of the possible. The challenge is numbers, finance and the locations. But it can be done.”