Alistair Kirkwood stepping down as managing director of NFL UK: “In some ways, this has been a labour of love. I really feel blessed to have labored on one thing that I really feel so captivated with for such a prolonged interval.”
Last Updated: 24/03/21 2:10pm
Alistair Kirkwood has performed an instrumental function within the NFL’s growth within the UK. Image: NFLUK
Alistair Kirkwood will step down as managing director of NFL UK on March 31, concluding a two-decade NFL profession during which the league has turn into a longtime half of the British sporting panorama.
Kirkwood joined the league in 2000 and has performed a pivotal function in bringing 28 regular-season NFL video games to London, attaining a multi-fold enhance within the sport’s fan base and tv viewership, and constructing the NFL’s business portfolio and neighborhood profile.
“In some ways, this has been a labour of love,” mentioned Kirkwood, who initially joined the NFL in a twin function of overseeing the league’s enterprise within the UK and as head of technique for the NFL Europe League. “I really feel blessed to have labored on one thing that I really feel so captivated with for such a prolonged interval.”
As head of the NFL’s UK workplace, Kirkwood has overseen all business and enterprise operations, together with the staging of London Games, which started with a single recreation at Wembley Stadium in 2007. There have now been 28 video games performed in London at three totally different stadiums, together with the NFL’s first purpose-built dwelling exterior of the US at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which hosted its first two video games in 2019. A complete of 31 of the NFL’s 32 groups have now performed in London.
Under Kirkwood’s steering, the NFL has achieved constant growth and now has greater than 13m followers within the UK and is watched by greater than 20m distinctive tv viewers per season.
NFL govt vice president-chief technique & growth officer Christopher Halpin mentioned: “The NFL household deeply appreciates Alistair’s dedication and contributions to NFL UK over two decades. He ought to be proud of his achievements and the huge strides made within the UK beneath his management. His imaginative and prescient and ardour have helped the game obtain extraordinary growth in a single of our core markets, and we stay up for constructing on that momentum.”
Kirkwood was the driving pressure behind the International Player Pathway programme, which identifies worldwide athletes for intensive coaching earlier than being positioned on NFL group follow squads. The programme has been answerable for the UK’s Efe Obada (Carolina Panthers), Australia’s Jordan Mailata (Philadelphia Eagles) and Germany’s Jakob Johnson (New England Patriots) turning into key contributors on their respective groups.
During Kirkwood’s tenure, NFLUK has achieved record business income via sponsorship, client merchandise and subscriptions to the Game Pass streaming service, whereas incomes renown for award-winning fan occasions in Regent Street, Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly and a touring sequence of NFLUK Live theatre-style occasions, which have created touchpoints for followers in all corners of the UK.
Meanwhile, the NFL’s neighborhood presence within the UK has seen the introduction of a Flag Football programme that now reaches greater than 20,000 younger boys and women yearly and the institution of the ground-breaking NFL Academy, based mostly at Barnet and Southgate College, which affords a mix of schooling and American soccer to offer life-changing alternatives to student-athletes aged 16-19.
Kirkwood continued: “Every time we’ve got tried one thing new – whether or not it was taking part in video games within the UK, or taking fan occasions on the highway across the nation, or introducing new participation programmes into native communities – the response has been superb.
“It has been necessary to show our dedication to CSR and social programmes and I’m very proud that, although the NFL would possibly initially have been a predominantly imported sport, we’ve got a powerful ethos of giving again to the UK neighborhood. An emphasis on schooling and character growth has seen constructive outcomes for many individuals.”
The NFL’s UK enterprise is now being led by Brett Gosper, who has joined the league as head of UK and Europe after a nine-year stint as chief govt of World Rugby.
“I’m honoured to be taking on from Alistair and hope to construct on his unbelievable achievements of the previous two decades,” Gosper mentioned. “Working with a formidable and formidable group at the NFL I’m trying ahead to driving the League in the direction of even larger fan growth within the UK and Europe.”
Kirkwood added: “I strongly imagine that we have solely scratched the floor of the potential of the NFL on this market and am assured that Brett and his group will take it to even larger ranges within the coming years.”
