Tottenham could lose both NFL games next season

The COVID-19 related financial hits may continue for Tottenham Hotspur this coming season, with the Daily Mail reporting there’s a chance Spurs could lose both NFL games scheduled to be held at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium next year.

It’s still unclear just what will happen with the NFL season, which is supposed to begin in September. The league is planning to release its schedule soon and hasn’t said the season will be delayed, but social distancing laws and travel restrictions would likely make it unfeasible for the annual international games to occur.

The Mail claims that the cancellation of these two games would cost Spurs upwards of £4 million. That’s not a negligible amount of money, especially in this current climate, but it’s also not enough to impose any serious financial burden on the club.

North London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium hosted two NFL games in 2019, which were both considered to be huge successes. The Bears and Raiders played on October 6, while the Buccaneers and Panthers played the following week. Both contests were sold out, and both contests resulted in praise and positive publicity for Spurs’ brand new stadium.

This new pandemic-induced reality would likely also result in the cancellation of the plans for the Jacksonville Jaguars to play two of their games at Wembley this season.

There is no word in the article whether the contracts between Spurs and the NFL will force the league to provide financial compensation to the club if the international games do not go ahead as planned.

This news isn’t official. As with much of the reported solutions to the global shutdown of sports, no one really knows how things will be in a few months time, so nothing is certain yet.

Plenty of international sporting events set for 2020 have already been postponed, including the Olympics and Euro 2020. Both of those international competitions have been pushed back a year to 2021.