Colts fan in London on the NFL across the pond

NFL took over Regent Street over the weekend for Fan Fest.

[Editor’s Note: VigilantSports.com’s Aaron Eamer lives in Bristol, England, and he happily shared his thoughts and photos from the NFL International Series in London over the weekend.]

It was a Jacksonville Jaguars home game, and the Colts were a participant for the first time. The Colts lost 30-27.

LONDON — The fan festival today was actually a really nice touch to the weekend to try get people involved and feel that they’re closer to the sport. I met a couple of Colts fans from Indianapolis who were “fan-girling” heavily at Andrew Luck walking by, as it was the closest they’d gotten to him before. If there were Premier League soccer games in America I can’t imagine players doing the same so I think people really appreciated the effort made.

In terms of the overall build up, outside of people going to the games or around the area at the time, I don’t think most people realize it’s happening. I asked work colleagues and nobody knows about it happening unless they’re into the sport already. It seems it might take a few years to really grow it here, it needs to pull in the kids, and it’s very difficult to do that apart from weekends like this.

There were a number of kids around but how many will be at the game tomorrow? I really don’t know. There’s a lot of talk about a London team in the future but for me, this really isn’t going to work. People in the UK are so loyal to their teams that a new team coming in wouldn’t make fans jump ship to the new team. I, for example, would be a Colts fan no matter what happens and I think Colts games and are the only ones I’d go and watch. You’d really only pull the absolute hardcore fans and people looking to give it a go and I don’t see it working long term. The novelty would wear off. I think most people’s gripe with the game here is the time between downs.

Today though was real nice and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Queues could have moved faster but that’s the same with everything. The player appearances weren’t overly long but that’s again to be expected with a game tomorrow.