The NFL in London: Could the Super Bowl Be Headed Across the Pond?
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has made it clear that he wants to bring the NFL’s biggest game to his city. While the NFL has held 58 Super Bowls, all of them have been held in the United States. Khan wants to change that.
The London Stadium, a potential host for a future Super Bowl
“The Super Bowl is really important for us,” Khan told The Athletic. “We have a number of American football games and I want it to come here because we want American sports fans in Europe to come to London to watch them, not just go to America.”
One issue with putting a Super Bowl in London is the time difference. London is five hours ahead of the eastern time zone, which means the game would likely have to kick off around 9 p.m. in London for it to make sense. That would be a 4 p.m. ET kickoff and 1 p.m. PT for everyone on the West Coast.
The last Super Bowl to kick off in the 4 p.m. ET hour was Super Bowl XVI on CBS (49ers over Bengals), which also happened to be the highest-rated Super Bowl in NFL history, so the time change might not be insurmountable.
Even if the time zone situation were to get figured out, it’s still unlikely that London would get a game in the near future.
For one, the next three Super Bowl locations have already been decided:
- Super Bowl LIX (February 2025): New Orleans (Caesars Superdome)
- Super Bowl LX (February 2026): Santa Clara, California (Levi’s Stadium)
- Super Bowl LXI (February 2027): Inglewood, California (SoFi Stadium)
If London was going to host a Super Bowl, it couldn’t come until February 2028 at the earliest, but even that seems unlikely.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has expressed skepticism about hosting a Super Bowl in London
During a fan forum in London that was held back in October, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was actually asked about the possibility of putting a Super Bowl in London and although he didn’t rule it out, it didn’t sound like something that’s going to happen anytime soon, if it happens at all.
