Football in the U.S. is like a religion. Friday’s are reserved for high school; college football is played on Saturday’s and National Football League teams take to the field on the Lord’s Day. Football of the European variety? Not so much. Football in England is like a religion; fans of rival English Premiership teams are known to clash when their teams are playing and the country grinds to a halt during the World Cup. But the English don’t seem so averse to foreign football as their neighbors across the Atlantic.

In an effort to grow globally, the NFL and then commissioner Paul Tagliabue decided to stage a 2005 regular season game between the 49ers and the Cardinals in Mexico City—a bona fide success with 103, 467 fans packing Azteca Stadium.

Looking to build on the international foundation, Tagliabue’s successor, Roger Goodell announced last year that as many as two games each regular season could take place outside of NFL regions.

“We are talking about a limited number of games that we think will have a tremendous impact,” said the new commish back at the NFL Meetings last October.

“It's in response to the growing fan interest in our game overseas.”

The second stop in the NFL’s world tour is Merry Old England and given the abysmal failure of NFL Europe’s London Monarchs, some might be scratching their heads at the decision to stage a game—between the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants—at Wembley Stadium.

But NFL Europe isn’t the NFL and Londoners know the Real McCoy from a cheap imitation.

While the Monarchs had trouble drawing fans, the Wembley box office sold 40,000 tickets to the ‘Fins-Giants tilt in 90 minutes and was flooded with requests from overseas.

“Obviously the predominant number of fans will be from the UK, but there will be large numbers from the U.S. and Europe as well,” said Alistair Kirkwood, NFL UK’s managing director, when queried about ticket sales.

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