The St Louis Rams as a franchise already have a decent understanding of the UK sport market due to the fact that their owner Stan Kroenke is the owner of Arsenal, a London based Premier League side, but that’s about all they have on their side as they seek to try and become the new face of the NFL in the UK.
Having rejected the idea of going the whole hog by placing a new franchise in London, or even starting the process of moving an existing franchise across the pond, the NFL has taken a calculated risk by deciding that fans of the NFL in the UK don’t have strong enough ties to other franchises and will as such embrace the Rams as one of their own. In taking this risk, Kroenke and the rest of the NFL officials surely know that they have reached a crossroads as to the future of the NFL outside North America. Those following the 2012 Super Bowl Betting will need to bear this in mind.
Although there are thousands of NFL fans living in the UK, most of these fans tend to be either followers of the Patriots or fans of the San Francisco 49ers, and therefore not too keen to embrace a franchise that is clearly going through a messy rebuilding phase. With this in mind, the Rams know that they are going to have to put a lot of work in to winning over doubters in the UK if they want to pinch fans from other franchises in the way they will need to if they are to become a UK-based franchise. Anyone looking at the Betfair NFL betting site should remember this.
The first step for the Rams, though, will surely be getting off to a winning start in the first of their three years using Wembley as a home away from home.