How Wembley Stadium Became the NFL’s Premier International Venue

For more than a century, the name “Wembley Stadium” has been synonymous with football. Of course, as the longtime home of the English national team — first in the stadium’s original incarnation until its demolition in 2000, and then in its current iteration since 2007 — that has meant it is best known as a soccer venue. But as the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars and the Houston Texans prepare to face off under the famous arch this weekend, it is a different kind of football that is continuing to make its mark in the English capital.

Sunday’s contest marks the third consecutive week the NFL has had a game in London, with Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in North London having hosted games the previous two weeks. This will be the 45th NFL game in the UK, by far the most of any country outside the U.S., and the 28th at Wembley Stadium, 16 more than any other international venue.

The Jaguars have become as much a part of fall in London as changing leaves. This will be Jacksonville’s 16th game in that city and its 12th game at Wembley, and they arrive looking like an early Super Bowl contender, with a 4-1 record (Houston’s is the mirror opposite, 1-4).

When the NFL first ventured across the pond, it was Wembley Stadium that it deemed the best fit for its product. It has both the size (a capacity of 86,000 for American football) and the amenities on par with any the league can offer to fans in the U.S., and it has become almost an unofficial international home of the NFL overseas.

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Wembley’s NFL Timeline

The first recorded American football game at Wembley was not an NFL game, but rather the long-forgotten US Air Force Football Final in 1952, when LV. Burtonwood Bullets defeated the Fursty Eagles 27-6. Back then, teams from Germany and England took part in the Europe football championships, less than 10 years after the end of the Second World War.

There were reports of even earlier amateur games around 1944, after many Americans had been stationed in England during the War, but no specific matches were ever recorded.

However, it would take another three decades for the first NFL game to arrive at the stadium. In 1983, the St. Louis Cardinals met the Minnesota Vikings in the Global Cup, an exhibition game that had been the brainchild of English Hollywood screenwriter John Marshall.

A year later, it was the upstart United States Football League’s turn to promote American football in the UK, this time for a post-season match between the Tampa Bay Bandits and the Philadelphia Stars

By now, the NFL was paying attention to the increasingly large crowds at Wembley. In 1986, it launched a series of pre-season exhibition games at the stadium called the American Bowl, to promote the sport to a global audience. Wembley hosted the first eight American Bowl fixtures played outside of the United States, including an inaugural game in which defending Super Bowl champions Chicago Bears defeated the Dallas Cowboys 17-6, before the series broadened out to Japan, Canada, Germany, Spain, Ireland, Mexico and Australia.

In 1990, The World League of American Football was founded with the backing of the NFL to play professional American football in North America and Europe. It was a way of further capitalizing on the growing global demand for the sport, and WLAF team the London Monarchs played its first games at Wembley in the 1991 and 1992 seasons.

By 1993, attendances were dwindling at Wembley for NFL American Bowl games, reflecting the fans’ desire for something more meaningful than exhibition matches. After incorporating other countries into the schedule, the American Bowl lasted until 2005, when the league announced a landmark development that would transform the sport’s global image forever.

The Launch of the NFL International Series

The first regular-season game held outside of the United States took place not in England but in Mexico, with the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers matching up in 2005 before a league-record crowd of more than 103,000.

Two years later, however, the league kicked off the International Series. On October 28, 2007, the NFL played its first regular-season game outside North America, with the New York Giants defeating the Miami Dolphins. The master plan envisioned by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, then in just his second season on the job, to begin exporting America’s most popular league around the world was underway.

Such was the popularity and accessibility of Wembley that it would go on to serve as the exclusive UK home venue for the NFL International Series between 2007 and 2015, before games expanded to other venues and organizers identified opportunities to entice new supporters in other gateway markets.

Since 2022, Wembley has reclaimed its role in hosting regular-season games, while remaining a cornerstone of the NFL International Series schedule. Its status as a bona fide American football venue was cemented by a UK attendance record of 86,651 fans at a game between the Jaguars and the New England Patriots in 2024 — a 10,000-person uptick on a 2011 game between the Chicago Bears and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

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Global Expansion

This year’s International Series in London is part of a record slate of nine international NFL games abroad in 2026, which spans four continents, seven countries and eight stadiums. And it is not just familiar places like London or Wembley Stadium that are benefitting from the NFL’s accelerating global ambitions.

Australia (Melbourne) hosted its first regular-season NFL game on September 10 as the San Francisco 49ers defeated the Los Angeles Rams. Next week, Paris’ Stade de France — the Olympic Stadium during the 2024 Summer Games — will host France’s first NFL game with the Pittsburgh Steelers taking on the New Orleans Saints.

Last month, Rio de Janeiro hosted a game for the first time, and 72,792 fans — 88.3 percent of whom were from Brazil — came to Maracanã Stadium for the Baltimore Ravens’ game against the Dallas Cowboys.

Other international games still to come this season will be held in Spain (Bengals vs. Falcons in Madrid on November 8), Germany (Patriots vs. Lions in Munich on November 15) and Mexico (Vikings vs. 49ers in Mexico City on November 22).

American football audiences around the world are on an upward trajectory, boosted by greater exposure on social media and TV channels, as well as lucrative sponsorship deals. That is especially true in Great Britain, where the NFL says more than 18 million people in that country now watch the league’s games and support its teams.

What began with high hopes nearly 20 years ago has since transformed into a pillar of the NFL’s ambitions. Each match features an entire week of events and activations for fans to savor.

In perhaps the surest sign that British fans are adopting American attitudes toward football, tailgate parties have been introduced outside Wembley on gamedays, proving that whatever brand of football is being played will find a home at that famed venue.

NFL Games at Wembley Stadium

NFL Global Cup (exhibition)

• 1983: Minnesota Vikings 28, St. Louis Cardinals 10

American Bowl (exhibition)

• 1986: Chicago Bears 17, Dallas Cowboys 6
• 1987: Los Angeles Rams 28, Denver Broncos 27
• 1988: Miami Dolphins 27, San Francisco 49ers 21
• 1989: Philadelphia Eagles 17, Cleveland Browns 13
• 1990: New Orleans Saints 17, Los Angeles Raiders 10
• 1991: Buffalo Bills 17, Philadelphia Eagles 13
• 1992: San Francisco 49ers 17, Washington Redskins 15
• 1993: Dallas Cowboys 13, Detroit Lions 13

NFL International Series (regular season)