A Regular Season English Premier League Match Coming to the US?

By: Bob | October 25th, 2007

The NFL is doing its best this week to convert the citizens of England into pointyball fans by staging a regular season game at Wembley Stadium. As the English learn to differentiate between tight ends and split ends, there is some buzz that the cross-Atlantic cultural exchange will continue in the future with the Premier League staging a game that counts on American soil.

You can include West Ham owner Eggert Magnusson and Arsenal/Colorado Rapids man Stan Kroenke in the group that think it should happen.

“I can see that happening sooner rather than later. It would be good for the game,” Magnusson told Sky Sports News.

Arsenal’s American shareholder Stan Kroenke added: “There is probably a good chance of getting a game to go over there because both owners could agree to it. I think there is a reasonable chance it could take place in the future.”

New York is the locale being mentioned as a possible venue and you can bet that if a game were held there it would draw a huge crowd. Meaningless preseason exhibitions involving teams from England and Europe have done consistently well in the US. It might suck for fans in England who will have one less home game they can attend, but as sports become increasingly global I only see this type of thing happening more and more.

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Category: English Premier League, World Football

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ash87

This will never happen.
What team will fly their players thousands of miles over the atlantic when they proberly have another game a few days after.
Plus it would only likely be a success if it was one of the bigger games (Man united v Liverpool,Arsenal V Chelsea etc etc) and i cant see the fans here letting that happen without causing an uproar.
BC

lol, now that is an idea bound to make Kroenke popular to other Arsenal stockholders. I would not think this likely to happen for whole lots of reasons, just pointing logistics calendars being crowded already without dragging teams needlessly to play jet lagged. Poor fans as well, if they saw a home game moved across an ocean. LOL.

Maybe the best chance for a meaningful game in the USA might be some international competition meant to be on neutral ground. The CL or UEFA cup final are out of the question because of logistics, a wednesday in May at 20.45 central european time won´t appeal to any american sponsors. But the intercontinental cup has always traditionally been in Japan, now was replaced with the FIFA world cup club championship. Logistically the USA would be very convenient, and from 2009 FIFA will consider hosting it in places other than Japan. Far more likely than premiership games in England.
Eric

NY is convenient because it has a large stadium (Giants Stadium) and it's not that long of a flight from England (as compared to going to LA from London).
Jeff van Hoy

I'm surprised NY is the front-runner when LA, more specifically Santa Monica, has the largest concentration of ex-Pats in the country (something about growing up in a place with where the Sun seldom hits the ground, I guess.) The only problem I can see is venue, until they renovate the Coliseum (sight lines are awesome, but the condition makes it live up to it's namesake.)

I've never heard of a Champion's League match here (perhaps you're thinking of the 'Tour of Champions', 'World Series of Soccer' or any of the other hokey names that soccer marketing groups have divised when bringing over the likes of Man U, Barca, Milan or Madrid), but that would be awesome- be nice not to have to fly across the pond for a change (but I wouldn't trade my experiences in Madrid a couple years back for anything.)
Shane

Wasn't there Champions League games here a few years back?
I couldn't find anyone to go with me to see Friggin MAN U vs Bayern Munchen in Chicago. Milan vs Bayern was in NJ.
Now i can't buy enough tickets to bring everyone. I have friends fighting my g/f for a spot.
TheDreamTeam

About time. I mean, why the hell is the NFL going to the UK when NFL Europa failed? And friendlies between EPL and MLS teams are great but it would be awesome to watch a game that mattered during the regular season. Hope one of them happens in the NYC area. But it would have to be two of the bigger teams to really draw attention. A Liverpool, Man U, Man City, Chelsea, Arsenal, Tottenham, Aston Villa, Everton, West Ham match up of sorts would do wonders and attract tons of attention by the crappy U.S. sporting press.