The Super Bowl is arguably the only rock-solid, dependable yearly event that American network television has left to draw a massive audience. Thanks to those networks having streaming partners that simulcast the big game, the NFL gets the best of both worlds, and the ratings numbers keep rising every year.
Of course, that hasn’t stopped many people from offering up solutions to a problem that doesn’t exist.
John Skipper has long predicted that the game will move to a PPV model at some point. Streamers are going to pull out all the stops to convince the NFL to let them have one at some point. And of course, there are the calls for the NFL to go international with the Super Bowl at some point, something NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell confirmed as a possibility earlier this year.
If it’s up to Lord Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the United States, that possibility will happen much sooner than later.
“I’ve made a big pitch for the first Super Bowl outside the US to take place in Britain,” he told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on Thursday, via The Times. “I want that Super Bowl in Britain. I don’t care when it takes place, but I want it announced while I’m ambassador. We love it, we love it.”
As Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio notes, while there would likely be a lot of grumbling and complaining about the most American sporting event of all taking place elsewhere, very few people would boycott the annual tradition.
However, there is one problematic issue that moving the Super Bowl to England, presumably London, creates.
Since 1991, the Super Bowl has kicked off at some point between 6:19 and 6:40 p.m. EST. That’s very obviously to ensure that all of the U.S. time zones have adequate primetime access to the game, while also allowing the broadcaster to maximize the programming around it. The NFL and its broadcaster want to claim their Super Bowl was the most-watched ever, and this can only be achieved when the game is in the late afternoon or prime time for most of America.
To maintain that start time, the game would have to kick off locally at 11:30 p.m. in London. That’s an absurd ask, not just of the players but of those in attendance as well. You could potentially move the start time up slightly, but the American broadcaster and audiences are going to balk at a Super Bowl that starts at Noon on the West Coast. That also means fewer people are watching the pre-game programming, which means less advertising revenue.
The best you could probably compromise is a 10:30 p.m. local start (5:30 p.m. EST), and even that feels unrealistic.
People have been discussing an international Super Bowl for so long that someone has likely analyzed these numbers and considered the feasibility. Perhaps the NFL can persuade that year’s broadcaster to agree to an earlier start time. The NFL’s regular-season London games have proven that die-hard fans will get up bright and early to watch their favorite team, but the Super Bowl is a whole other animal.
If there’s anything we know the NFL loves, it’s money. And there’s simply too much money on the line here to mess with what’s a perfect system right now.