I strolled around a vintage flea market this morning in London and, the more I looked around, the more I noticed that the majority of the items the flea market was selling came from America. There were university shirts from Auburn and Michigan, and I even came across a Charlotte Checkers jersey. I don’t even find people wearing those when I’m actually in Charlotte, so what was one doing at the east end of London?
Upon asking an owner of one of the shops his inventory, I found out that a majority of the sports clothing he sells was from America. That was intriguing to me because soccer is well-known for being the most popular sport in England, but, somehow, this store thought American football clothing was more likely to sell than a Chelsea soccer jersey.
Lately, American sports have been spreading to the U.K. The NFL had a couple games in London this year. I could always tell it was game day because London would become a sea of NFL jerseys, often not even ones of the teams that were playing that day. A football game here in England is just a reason to celebrate the NFL and wear your best merchandise.
This makes sense based on the revenues the NFL makes. American football is the ninth-most popular sport in the world, with a following of only 400 million, which is nothing compared to soccer’s 3.5 billion viewers. However, even with 3 billion fewer viewers, American football’s most valuable sports franchise, the Dallas Cowboys, brings in $4 billion a year. Even if you just look at the overall numbers, the soccer industry, racking up $1.44 billion a year, makes comparably little to the NFL’s $9 billion and the MLB’s $7.2 billion.
From an American’s perspective, there is a lack of emphasis on sports in England, especially at a collegiate level. As I mentioned before, there were jerseys from Clemson and Auburn at the store, not ones from Oxford or Cambridge. Perhaps this comes from England’s college sports recruitment system, which is very different from the one we know in America. In England, students don’t get recruited right out of high school to play for a collegiate team, instead all the teams are club sports which students just sign up for once they arrive at a university.
When I chatted with some people about the attitude toward sports in England, most people seemed to enjoy them and follow a soccer team, but there is definitely not an emphasis on sports. I play on the mixed lacrosse team at my school I’m studying abroad at and, even though lacrosse isn’t the most popular sport to watch at NC State, there are still some viewers at the club team’s games. Our team can barely get the team itself to show up for matches. Further, even with our football record this season, Carter-Finley Stadium is still bringing in thousands of fans every game. If your team is playing a game, you go. It’s just kind of what we do.
Of course there is that romantic side to the story where we say that America needs sports since they are part of our civic identity and our history. Sports are what binds the American population on Thanksgiving or during the Super Bowl. The “Americanization” of sports and spread of merchandise shows that England wants just a little taste of what it’s like to live in a country with such an emphasis on national sports. Even though America is a little extra when it comes to our sports (inflated athlete salaries, sticking kids in sports from a young age), it’s just who we are and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I don’t know what I would be doing this Thursday if I couldn’t stream the game on my 13-inch laptop during my apartment’s makeshift Thanksgiving dinner.
