Leave the NFL at Wembley as a one-off

Sat in on Tom Brady's press conference in the bowels of Wembley following the NFL game on Sunday, I glanced to my left and recognised a familiar face.

Where do I know that face from? I thought. Have I seen him in the football press boxes of Yorkshire and what's he doing here at an American Football game in London?

Noticing me staring hard at him, the person in question returned the glance.

No hint of recognition on his face but it was bugging me.

I was just about to whisper - Brady was still opining to a packed hall on the Patriots' performance - if he recognised me when it finally twigged who it was and my blushes were saved.

It was Jake Humphrey, of the BBC. I had actually remembered him off the telly from far flung destinations, not the press box at Millmoor as I originally thought.

Not a chance in hell that he would know my face, the same face I had stuffed earlier with free half-time hot dogs.

I tell this story more to paint the picture of the massive appeal of American Football being played on English soil, our hallowed soil for that matter, and a meaningful regular season game to boot.

The media area at Wembley on Sunday was packed, the queue to get into the locker room to interview players was as long as a Josh Johnson hail mary and for the second season running I bypassed the chance to interview a naked nickelback in favour of hearing the coaches thoughts on their sides performance in front of 84,000 'new' fans.

Journalists from Florida, Boston and all across America had descended on our capital for what is now becoming a regular mid-season slot. There were also members of the media from across Europe, eager to catch a glimpse of one of the richest sports in the world out of its comfort zone and on their doorstep.

In Europe, the NFL's International Series is greeted with open arms from lifelong fans of the Packers, Jets and Browns, and members of the media curious to see what it's all about and gauge the merits of its appeal.

Opinion in America is divided as to its impact, with fans of those teams who have to forego a home game particularly against it. The teams themselves have to sacrifice a lot of practice time to criss-cross the Atlantic.

The American media have gone past curiosity and are now merely getting irritated and will be irked further by suggestions that there could be two games played in England next season, or the extension of the regular season from 16 to 18 games to accomodate games abroad, or even a London franchise in future years.

For me, the NFL deserve praise for the bold move to expand their game. It is a gamble that has and continues to pay off.

Expanding that however, could seriously damage its appeal and its relations. Wembley has sold out in each of the three years because there are enough knowledgable American Football fans who want to see a game every year. The stadium is also a big appeal, but even if it were Detroit Lions versus Cleveland Browns, NFL-mad UK and European fans would still flock to the game.

But a second game in the north of England, perhaps Manchester, as has been suggested for next season, would be a step too far. The setting would not be as grand, and indeed would not feel like playing in a Superbowl, as Brady likened Sunday's game to.

Plus the league would be running the risk of exposing the games to fewer fans pouring through the turnstiles. The media attention would also suffer if a rarity becomes the norm.

The NFL has a big market in Germany, Spain and Holland, where the shortlived NFL Europe was a success. Twin games in London and Berlin would work, but overloading one country with games, and testing the strength of a minority sport in one nation, would be a stretch too far.

There are too many pitfalls as well for a London franchise, in the logistics and organisation, particularly with the amount of travelling teams, fans and media would have to do. Would British fans still pay good money to see an English team full of American rejects lose to the Houston Texans each week? No way.

The NFL International Series in London has proved a roaring success and should be kept as it is - a one-off at Wembley, a rare treat for gridiron fans, and an opportunity for the sport to dominate the headlines in Europe for just a few days.

Do golf and rugby comply with Olympic ideal?

Picture the scene. The athletes village in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 2016. The Summer Olympics are in full swing and Alistair Brownlee, a triathlete from Leeds, is in the village common room flicking through the Brazilian television channels, sat alongside Tiger Woods.

They are two of the hardest working sportsmen on the planet who have earned success in equal measure, but are a million miles apart in earnings, net worth and the amount of change they have in the pockets of their team tracksuits.

For Brownlee is an amateur sportsman, who embodies the Olympic ideal. Woods is the most famous sports person on the planet, has been for two decades, and is by a long way its richest.

He is a professional, and therefore not exactly the target audience Pierre de Coubertin had in mind when he conceived the idea of the Olympic movement back in Paris in 1894.

The Olympic ideal has changed and evolved many times in its 120-year lifetime, largely for the better in many respects.

Professional sport has long been a part of the fabric of the five rings; in the NHL players who fill the ice hockey teams at the Winter Games, and the tennis players who fly in and out to play their matches in the Summer Games. The majority of sports are now professional in an era where money is thrown at the stars who make their name at the Olympics.

Gone are the days when Jesse Owens, the most iconic Olympic hero of all time, returned to America after the 1936 Berlin Games to seek his fame and fortune only to be ostricised by the sports national governing body for turning his back on athletics' amateur roots.

The Olympics is about sport, and therefore wishes to be all encompassing, and so today passed the law that golf and rugby sevens would become part of the global extravaganza in Rio in 2016.

But what about squash, a professional sport only for the top players, that has sought to gain Olympic recognition time and again, only to be denied an invite to the biggest show on earth, with no real reason being offered to the likes of James Willstrop and Nick Matthew.

Opposing the decision of the IOC is not my purpose, golf and rugby are sports I hold dear and I believe that rugby sevens is a worthy inductee and could be managed as football is in the Olympics, with only players under the age of 23 representing their country.

Golf shares a number of ideals and morals that strike a chord with the Olympic movement, the self-regulation of the laws of the game where a player readily disqualifies himself/herself from a tournament for the merest infringement, is its most admirable quality.

However, for me, the notion of Tiger sitting with Brownlee in the Olympic village does not sit right. A man who has trained all his life for a shot at Olympic gold against a man who has won everything and needs just one more collectable for that small space at the back of his trophy cabinet.

Not that Tiger would give anything less than 100%, but will Rio be his every thought from the moment the London Games close to mark the start of the next cycle for Olympic athletes?

Probably not. I hope to be proved wrong and that golf warrants its place at the greatest sporting spectacle on earth.