On Sunday the Amercian NFL brought their first ever league match outside the United States to London - a clash between the Miami Dolphins and the New York Giants at the new Wembley Stadium. I was lucky enough to attend the game with London 2012 colleagues, not only to enjoy the US-style party but also to think about lessons for 2012 - Wembley is, of course, a Football venue for the Games.
I’m not sure all the US-style trimmings will make it to 2012 but there were certainly great lessons for our Venues and Sports teams. It was interesting for the Sports team to see how well the NFL presented their sport to new observers like me: we’re always looking for new ways to get sport to a wider audience too and the match offered lots of interesting ideas on how to do it.
Our Venues team were also able to look at the ‘overlay’- the additional facilities needed for an existing venue to get it ready for Games-time. This is something we’re doing a lot of work on for 2012 where we will ‘dress’ venues like Wimbledon, Wembley and Lords for Olympic sports.
