Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator sport | 25 October 2008

It’s showbiz

issue 25 October 2008

It’s showbiz

As anyone with an unhealthy addiction to Saturday Night Live and presidential debates can tell you, Americans stage a contest like no one else. And that doesn’t just apply to the race for the White House. So if you find yourself in the mood for a slice of Uncle Sam as an election curtain-raiser this weekend, tune in to the American football. Or — if you can swing yourself a ticket somehow — go to Wembley and see for yourself.

The NFL is coming to London, with the San Diego Chargers taking on the New Orleans Saints on Sunday. It will be a perfectly packaged event too, four hours of banging entertainment: that’s what the Yanks do so well. And whatever your opinion of a sport in which the action flows for all of ten seconds at a time — at a push — I hope the decision-makers in our own national game will be watching.

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