Fans in London dreaming of an NFL team of their own
The Miami Dolphins beat the Oakland Raiders on Sunday 38-14.
The game was in London, a city that's become the NFL's home away from home.
Every year around this time, a chunk of turf in London looks and feels a lot like America.
This is the NFL going long with three regular season games in London for the very first time.
Fans say they love the speed, the glamour, and insist that a franchise in London would cultivate the already existing passion many have for the game.
That is what's making the NFL pay attention -- all those glorious British accents. They're Dolphins fans. They're Raiders fans. But these are diehard football fans.
This is not an American audience, said the NFL's vice president of international, Mark Waller.
"Quite the opposite," he continued. "We do a regular review of who's in the stadium and stadium surveys and basically, about 88 percent of the fans are U.K. fans, the vast majority from the London area."
The NFL says there are now 12 million fans in the U.K., and sports broadcasters saw a 60-percent audience increase last year alone.
All American football games take place at Wembley, the home of English soccer, and they've all been instant sell-outs. There are now 30,000 season ticket holders.
Critics say there are huge issues to a London franchise, like, who wants to live here full time? And what about the crippling jet lag?
But a growing fan base is getting increasingly hard to ignore. The enthusiasm they put on display Sunday has fans here dreaming that one day, one team will call London home.
