At a teal-themed Wembley, the Jacksonville Jaguars celebrated a desperately needed 32-16 victory over the New England Patriots. The Jags have played 13 games in London — four in the past 13 months — and that number will significantly increase over the next three seasons. The team could also play three home games in London in 2027.
Since their first visit in 2013, Jacksonville have marketed themselves as London’s team and have played in the English capital each year since — the pandemic-hit 2020 season aside — with the franchise at the business end of the NFL’s international push.
In 2015, they became the first team to play in London for three consecutive seasons and while owner Shahid Khan was thwarted in his attempt to buy Wembley, the home of English soccer, in 2018 for £600million ($456m), Jacksonville signed a three-year deal to play a home game there each year from 2022. Now, after two straight seasons of back-to-back games in London (another first — the Jags played as home and away teams on consecutive weekends), Jacksonville continue to build foundations across the pond.
Back in Florida this week, the Jaguars received approval from NFL owners to renovate EverBank Stadium, their home since the franchise’s formation in 1995. Initial work will start on the $1.4billion, 63,000-seater “Stadium of the Future” in February. The deal includes a 30-year lease and the project is expected to be completed for the 2028 season.
The Jaguars will play at EverBank for the first two years of the project with reduced capacity but, for the 2027 season, Jacksonville will need to play at a yet-to-be-decided temporary home. As part of the renovation deal, the Jaguars can play up to six home games internationally between 2025 and 2027.
Khan told The Athletic: “We are proud and thrilled with our new agreement in Jacksonville on the ‘Stadium of the Future’. Our future in Jacksonville is secure and promising.
“We also anticipate London always being part of our identity. We have the flexibility to play an additional home game in London in either 2025 or 2026, if circumstances with the stadium renovation favour moving one more home game to London in either of those seasons.
“In 2027, when we wouldn’t be playing in Jacksonville anyway, we can play up to three home games in London. It is too early to speculate specifics, but our London alliance is fantastic for everyone involved. It serves our team, the NFL and our community, and it is creating NFL and Jaguars fans in London and throughout the UK.
“We have a new stadium and reimagined downtown around the corner in Jacksonville, and our London presence is just beginning to hit its stride. It couldn’t be better.”
Since 2022, the Jaguars’ home games at Wembley have been run separately from the NFL. The team are responsible for everything, from ticket sales to staffing — and, as ESPN reported in 2022, team president Mark Lamping said their London games account for anything between 11 and 15 per cent of the team’s local revenue. This year, a record London attendance of 86,651 was announced for the Patriots game.
Chief operating officer Chad Johnson said taking charge of the London games was an “important opportunity” for the Jaguars and with the deal to play at Wembley now expired, Johnson said they were “working towards” an extension and “just going through the final steps there”.
“Home away from home,” is how Johnson described Wembley and the annual excursion to London has become part and parcel of being a Jacksonville player.
After beating the Patriots, quarterback Trevor Lawrence echoed Johnson in his postgame press conference: “It’s pretty unique. When I first got here (in 2021), it was just an interesting deal, like something I never really thought about doing. And then being over here every year, it does almost feel like a second home. We feel more at home here than a lot of other teams do.”
Special teams coordinator Heath Farwell reinforced the positive effects of a lengthier stay. “We go for hikes and walks around here when we get any free time, and then we all sit together at dinners,” he told The Athletic.
“It’s a great opportunity to bond, sit with your buddies, have a meal together and do some of those different things you probably wouldn’t do back home. It’s a cool week to bond.”
Defensive end Josh Hines-Allen, who visits England during the offseason, told The Athletic he didn’t do “too much exploring” as he didn’t want to be “on my legs too much”.
He has reason to return, too, after narrowly missing meeting one of his heroes. “My wife and I went to Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant last year and the staff said we just missed him. I really don’t try to get fan-boyish around anybody, but like, Gordon Ramsay… when I was in college, I binge-watched Kitchen Nightmares.”
With the team block-booking The Grove for this year’s nine-night stay — the 300-acre five-star hotel 18 miles from London that features a practice field, a weight room and a golf course — Jaguars staff and players took part in several events for the Union Jax foundation, the Jaguars’ UK-based fan club.
On a grassroots level, the Jaguars are thinking of the next generation. Almost 90,000 children play JagTag annually — a simplified version of football — with the team organising school visits and participants attending open practice sessions last week.
“The Jaguars’ presence in London today is undeniable – a vast fanbase throughout the United Kingdom, UK-based sponsors, a charitable foundation, school and fitness programs, and so much more,” Khan said. “The business impact, prestige and exposure that Jacksonville receives as a result is measurable, and immeasurable.”
Last week also saw a Welshman present the Prince of Wales with an “HRH” (His Royal Highness) Jaguars jersey. Jacksonville signed former rugby union winger Louis Rees-Zammit to their practice squad off waivers in September — and the 23-year-old ran the royal through drills at an NFL Foundation event in London.
But Jacksonville have also branched out. When the NFL introduced the international home marketing areas program in 2022 — which allows teams to market overseas, as they do in the U.S. — Jacksonville were one of the first 18 teams to sign up. They first concentrated on Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but last year joined the Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Jets as teams who can market in the Republic of Ireland.
Johnson said the Jaguars’ fanbase in Ireland was growing. “Are we growing the metrics? Are we bringing new fans to the game? Are we getting new people into our database? We’ll evaluate after this game, where did the fans come from?” he added. “Where in the UK did they come from? Where in Ireland, where from Germany? Where from the United States? And we’ll look and see where the fans are. We’ll know a lot about them, and that way we can communicate appropriately with each audience.”
Dublin hosted an NFL preseason game in 1997 and has hosted nine college games — three of them sellouts in the last three years — so does that mean Irish fans will see Jacksonville play there?
“We don’t necessarily control whether we play in those other markets, the league controls that,” Johnson said. “There are other teams that have international marketing rights in the Republic of Ireland. No 1, we don’t make that decision. But No 2, we’ve been focusing on the UK and adding Ireland as part of our mix. So we’ll see what happens over the next couple of years.”
With investment in Florida and further afield, the Jaguars can look forward to a truly international future. But with Jacksonville hosting Super Bowl XXXIX back in 2005, could the NFL’s biggest game one day make a return to Duval?
“I will tell you that the stadium will be Super Bowl-ready. So now we’ve got to make sure that the Jaguars and the city of Jacksonville are Super Bowl-ready too,” Johnson said.
(Top photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
