The NFL is locked in returning the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium during the 2023 season and the Premier League ground will be ready to welcome the competition with open arms.
The League announced its international slate for 2023 on Wednesday, featuring five playoff teams from last season.
London regulars, the Jacksonville Jaguars will kickstart the action at Wembley against the Atlanta Falcons on October 1, before Tottenham Hotspur Stadium gets its first glimpse of action with the Jaguars traveling to play the Buffalo Bills on October 8.
In the third game in London, the Tennessee Titans will face the Baltimore Ravens in Tottenham on October 15.
Then the NFL will cross over to the continent, where Super Bowl winners the Kansas City Chiefs will play the Miami Dolphins on November 5 and the New England Patriots will play the Indianapolis Colts on November 12 in Frankfurt, Germany.
The NFL is locked in returning the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium during the 2023 season
The stadium first hosted the NFL when the Chicago Bears faced the Oakland Raiders in 2019
The Union Jack is held next to the Star-Spangled Banner at last year’s NFL London game
With the NFL set to take place in London for the first three weeks of October, the hosts will be gearing up to repeat the success of previous years, thanks to 7,000 tons of steel and state-of-the-art facilities.
The NFL first washed up on the shores of the British Isles in 2007 when the International Series first opened in a rainy Wembley Stadium.
However, it wasn’t until Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur’s state-of-the-art stadium was built that the global games were revolutionized.
The $1.2bn (£1bn) stadium, purpose-built for both football and NFL, hosted its first football game in October 2019 when the Oakland Raiders beat the Chicago Bears in front of 60,463 fans, before the Carolina Panthers triumphed over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a week later.
The games even featured the entertainment fanfare usually associated with the Super Bowl and the no-cost performances by Rihanna and other artists, as lifelong Spurs fan AJ Tracey took the stage to perform for the crowd, becoming the first artist to do a halftime show. perform at the Games in London.
As the 60,000-capacity stadium prepares to host the NFL for its fourth time after Covid-19 forced the cancellation of the 2020 International Series, grounds staff will gear up to transform the stadium into a stage that will bring a global thriller worthy.
Before the Jaguars can kick-start this year’s London Games, hard and impressive work is being put into the NFL makeover of Tottenham Stadium.
Work began at conception. While designing the stadium, members of the Populous design team and Tottenham staff went to America for inspiration.
All NFL teams’ logos will be displayed at Wembley Way prior to the 2022 game
The Premier League team’s stadium is undergoing an impressive makeover to welcome the NFL
Among the venues visited were US Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Gillette Stadium – home of the New England Patriots, AT&T Stadium in Dallas and University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.
The latter opened in 2006 and has a fully retractable field.
Tottenham had a significant problem in the form of two 49m high steel trees, each weighing 262 tonnes, supporting the South Stand.
They turned to Sheffield-based engineering firm SCX, who are also responsible for the retractable roofs on Wimbledon’s Center Court and Court No 1, to create the world’s first divisible retractable pitch.
Tottenham’s NFL field is 1.6 meters below the football field. The three sections of the field, weighing more than 3,000 tons, move along nine rails and nestle under the grandstand.
It takes 99 steel barges connected together to form the sliding field to pull it in, a process that takes about 25 minutes.
Sections slide out simultaneously, before moving laterally to create the seamless surface.
Once all sections are connected, the hydraulic slides raise to level the sidelines with the field.
Nevertheless, the lawn is not damaged, because thanks to LED lighting, cooling and irrigation systems, it can be stored in a garage for up to 10 days.
NFL players have been impressed in recent years.
This feels like a football stadium!” Giovani Bernard bellowed ahead of the inaugural games in 2019.
Meanwhile, Efe Obada laughed, “The changing rooms are better than ours!”
The stadium even offers fans the chance to outfit themselves with NFL merchandise galore.
The word shop does not adequately cover the 23,000 square meter megastore, the largest club shop in Europe.
The International Series also requires months of preparation for the teams.
Making the trip across the Atlantic to play at Tottenham Stadium or Wembley requires teams to plan far more than a game in the United States would have cost.
For example, they need to pack thousands of items, ranging from cereal and extension cords to gauze pads and wristbands, onto a ship bound for London.
Not only must they pack these items, but they must also list the value and country of origin of the contents of each suitcase or bag, according to The New York Times.
Some teams even fly the crew chief to their London hotel to watch the food being served at the team’s headquarters or find an industrial launderette to wash used uniforms.
New York Giants players Graham Gano and Jamie Gillan take a photo on the Tottenham pitch
The NFL’s international schedule for the 2023 season was announced on Wednesday
Since 2007 there has been a growing movement to expand NFL play in London
All efforts and state-of-the-art facilities enable Tottenham Stadium and teams to bring an authentic NFL experience to the British capital.
One that has earned Tottenham Stadium the League’s home-away-from-home title.
After flirting with Wembley and Twickenham, the home of English rugby, the NFL has arguably established a base in Tottenham.
Wembley will still host a game this season as the Jaguars’ unofficial overseas home, but Tottenham’s ten-year agreement to play at least two games a year tells you where the NFL sees its base in London.