Britain’s man in Washington said the United Kingdom should host the first Super Bowl outside the United States.
Peter Mandelson said he’d made a big lobbying effort for the NFL’s flagship fixture to take place across the Atlantic since taking up his ambassadorial role in February.
“I’ve made a big pitch for the first Super Bowl outside the U.S. to take place in Britain,” the U.K. ambassador to the U.S. told the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Thursday, asking whether there were any NFL workers in the audience.
“I want that Super Bowl in Britain. I don’t care when it takes place but I want it announced while I’m ambassador,” Mandelson added, to audience laughter. “We love it, we love it.”
London Mayor Sadiq Khan last year called for the Super Bowl to take place in the city to solidify its status as the “sporting capital of the world.”
“The Super Bowl is really important for us,” Khan said at the time. “We have a number of American football games and I want it to come here because we want American sports fans in Europe to come to London to watch them, not just go to America.”
London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium will host two NFL games in October but next year’s Super Bowl final will take place in Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California on Feb. 8.
The Super Bowl has never taken place outside the U.S. since its creation in 1967. But it’s not the only sporting competition political types want in the U.K.
Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump called for the U.S. president’s Turnberry golf course in Scotland to host the Open Championship after the tournament was last held there in 2009, five years before Trump purchased the estate.
However, organizers said it was unlikely to happen soon due to logistical challenges and commercial viability.
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