Sporting Bygones: Grand occasion that enables a guilty pleasure has NFL fans going back for more every year

It is one of those guilty pleasures for a sports reporter who can sit back in the stands, no pen or laptop in front of him, and just enjoy the spectacle.

This year’s match-up involves the St Louis Rams as the home team, who have willingly sacrificed one of only eight home games to help sell the sport in a foreign marketplace, and the New England Patriots, who reached the Super Bowl back in February.

But as most NFL fans would agree, it’s not whose playing, more the occasion that draws them back year after year.

Since 2007, the National Football League has staged a regular season game at the English national stadium, which on all but one occasion has attracted a crowd in excess of 80,000.

The year it did not manage to do so, 2011 when the Chicago Bears defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, tickets had only been on sale for a little over a month because a labour dispute between the NFL and the players had put the fixture, and the season as a whole, in jeopardy. The crowd was still in excess of 76,000.

The concept was a novel one when it was devised in 2006, and the speed at which it caught on illustrated the eagerness with which the NFL wanted to broaden its horizons.

Similarly, the take up of tickets in each of the six years highlights the depth of interest there actually is in this country for the sport.

While the games have never been classics – with the exception of the high-scoring 2008 fixture between the New Orleans Saints and the San Diego Chargers – there is enough of a fanbase to keep coming back for more each year.

Talk of a British-based franchise still poses too much of a logistical headache for me, just as discussions about holding a second game here in Britain begs the question of whether they might be pushing their luck and threatening to spoil a good thing.

This is not the first time, after all, that the NFL have attempted to tap into the British market.

They did so, to some extent and to relative success, in the 1980s.

The American Bowl as it was known was just a pre-season – or exhibition – game, and as such, did not enjoy the pressure of high-stakes football.

It did, however, showcase the best teams of the NFL to a marketplace that in the mid-1980s was beginning to fall in love with American Football.

Channel 4 was the groundbreaking broadcaster in 1982 when, shortly after their launch as a terrestrial television station, they showed a highlights package from the NFL every week during the September to February season.

It was a watershed for American sports in this country and was an instant hit.

Names like John Elway and Dan Marino, Joe Montana and William ‘The Fridge’ Perry entered the British sporting psyche.

To tap into this new-found market, the governing body of America’s pastime devised the concept of the American Bowl.

From 1986 to 2003, an American Bowl was played every year, not always in London, but in Berlin, Montreal, Tokyo, Dublin, Barcelona, and Mexico City – anywhere where interest was strong and could be exploited.

Eight games were played at Wembley Stadium, from the first pioneers of the Chicago Bears and the Dallas Cowboys in 1986, to the return of the Cowboys against the Detroit Lions in August, 1993, the last game.

During that period, Montana’s San Francisco 49ers played at Wembley, while Elway’s Broncos, Marino’s Dolphins and Troy Aichman’s Cowboys all touched down in London.

The popularity of the event led to the World League of American Football, later NFL Europe, from which stemmed the London Monarchs, a team that played at Wembley and lasted from 1991 to 1998.

The support base could never be sustained, though, as interest began to wane, only to be re-energised again in the last decade, which again culminated in the greater commitment from the NFL with their International Series.

Some of the game’s biggest stars have come over to London to showcase their talent.

Drew Brees of the New Orleans Saints is one of the most lethal quarterbacks of his generation.

Tom Brady, who played in London three years ago with New England when they defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, is back again on Sunday, October 28, with the Patriots.

It has been a bold step from the NFL that dates back nearly 30 years and, as long as people don’t get too greedy and push too much, long should it continue.