Is the Super Bowl leaving the United States?
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell left the door open for an overseas Super Bowl when he spoke to reporters in London ahead of Sunday’s Jacksonville Jaguars-Chicago Bears game from Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
However, the 65-year-old executive did not see that possibility as an immediate priority.
“We’ve always tried to play a Super Bowl in an NFL city; that was always kind of a reward for cities that have NFL franchises,” Goodell said Saturday. But things change. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if that happens one day.
As noted expert, former ESPN producer and Syracuse University media professor Dennis Deninger, told DailyMail.com, an overseas Super Bowl is inevitable. What’s more, he believes it will take place at the Spurs’ home field: a five-year-old, 61,000-seat gem built, in part, to host NFL games.
Former ESPN producer Dennis Deninger (right) believes Goodell (left) has already made his decision
Jets fans enjoy the pre-match atmosphere at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on October 6
“It’s the only stadium of its kind outside the United States and it’s only five years old,” Deninger told DailyMail.com.
“Follow the pattern,” he continued. “You build a big new stadium, you get a big new audience and you get a Super Bowl.”
Deninger, an Emmy Award-winning ESPN producer with a quarter-century of experience at the network, is now a professor emeritus at Syracuse University, where he is founding director of the sports communications program at the Newhouse School of Public Communications.
Now Deninger has published ‘The soccer game that changed America,’ which traces the history and social impact of the Super Bowl from its infancy to a future economic landscape that promises to extend far beyond the borders of the United States.
And in writing this book, Deninger came to an inevitable conclusion: the Super Bowl will be held in London in the very near future.
“It’s based on my years of research on the Super Bowl,” he said. “Tottenham Hotspur Stadium opened in 2019 and is the first of the stadiums built specifically for the NFL.”
Unlike other locations in Europe, Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was built, in part, for the NFL.
The pattern, as Deninger pointed out, is quite simple. Super Bowls are awarded to cities that invest billions in building NFL stadiums.
In February it was Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, which turned four years old. In 2022, it was the two-year-old SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California.
In fact, of the NFL’s nine newest stadiums, US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis is the only one that hasn’t hosted a Super Bowl, and anyone who spent February in Minnesota could easily explain why.
London, on the other hand, has a climate famous for being moderate, if a little humid.
In fact, so is Dublin, Ireland, where the NFL certainly plans to host an NFL regular season game in the near future. On Saturday, Goodell said there was “no doubt” Ireland will host an NFL game, although that might not be in the immediate future.
“I don’t know if it will be next year, but it will be coming soon,” Goodell said.