JJ and Kealia Watt taking in the action at Turf Moor
JJ and Kealia Watt taking in the action at Turf Moor (Image: PA)
The Championship promotion race could go down to the wire – and it is rather different to what JJ Watt experienced as an NFL player.
Scott Parker’s side are only a couple of points behind Leeds and Sheffield United with eight games to play as the club aims to make an immediate return to the Premier League.
Watt - who invested in the Clarets in 2023 along with his wife, ex-USA international Kealia - had a legendary career but the stakes of the English football pyramid offer a different type of thrill.
"When you know there is nothing bad that can happen if you finish last, it kind of dilutes the product," he told BBC Sport.
"When there is a literal consequence to winning and losing it makes a sport as close to the truest and most pure form that you can have.
"I'll never forget the stat on our first day (back) in the Premier League, when we played Manchester City and their three defenders cost more than the entire wage bill in the history of our club, since 1882. That doesn't happen in the NFL.
"Am I naive enough to think we can win the Premier League next year if we go up? No, I understand how all this works.
"Do we all dream of a Leicester-style run one day? Absolutely, but it's more in the little things, trying to make your club better on a day-by-day basis."
Watt can look forward to the final eight games without the pressure that he might have to come out of retirement.
The 35-year-old made the headlines after vowing to return to the NFL to sign for the Cincinnati Bengals if James Trafford went the rest of the season without conceding.
Trafford’s remarkable run of clean sheets lasted 12 games but eventually came to an end at Cardiff earlier this month when Yousef Salech’s looping header nestled in the top corner.
"It started to get picked up really big in America once he hit 12 and they put up a graphic that showed Manchester United had hit 14," Watt added.
"It was on every single show so my wife came in and said, 'You're not serious about this are you?'
"I said, 'If he does 24 matches in a row, that will truly be one of the greatest performances in the history of sport and I would be ridiculous not to honour my side of it'.
"So I had been training slightly differently for about three weeks leading up to the goal, and I did take a day off after (Cardiff) scored that goal."
Trafford has had a remarkable season to date (Image: PA) Watt isn’t the only big name from the United States to invest in an EFL club. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s project at Wrexham has been well documented while Tom Brady, another NLF great, owns shares in Birmingham City.
When asked what attracted him to Turf Moor, Watt replied: "There's plenty of people with advice on what you're supposed to do and how you're supposed to do it, but I knew I would want to do something, especially towards the end of my career, to keep the competitive juices flowing.
"So team ownership came into play there. I became really interested in English football back in 2011, and it started to become really appealing to me.
"I started poking around different teams, having conversations, and the path eventually led me here to Burnley."
He added: "You look at an American football [NFL] club - right now they're all valued at billions and billions of dollars.
"You take my amount of money and put it into that and congratulations, you have one seat at a game, not at the board table, not at anything. You come over here and the valuations are different and there's more opportunity.
"I saw an opportunity to get involved at a level I wanted to be involved at, be in the board meetings, learn and grow, while also injecting something, bringing something to the club in terms of global notoriety, eyeballs to the game etc."
The former Houston Texans star doesn’t just want to be restricted to the boardroom and has thrown himself into the local culture – from soaking up the pre-match atmosphere in the Turf Hotel to spreading the word about Benny and Hot to his American followers.
"Another thing that brings you to English football is the history, tradition, passion and supporters," he smiled.
"It's why I'm so drawn to it and why I walked from the hotel to the match the other day, because I wanted to be with the people.
"When I watch these games and go to these matches with these supporters... I told our players last year they truly don't understand how they affect these people on a day-to-day basis."