Is there any place in London that will show American football? Specifically the Cleveland Browns vs Cincinnati Bengals, Nov 29th? I am not sure of the time it would be shown in London. The game is scheduled for 4pm eastern standard time. I did not think it would matter since neither team is winning lately but, I was wrong, "it does matter". So, to keep the home front happy, do you have any ideas?

THANK YOU BUNCHES!
Sunny

Cleveland vs. Cincinnati???? Okay w/o specific info on London pubs interested in the worst teams in the NFL, try to get to a computer. But seriously, give London some credit as a distraction. Good luck.

We were at a Marriot that had an American sports bar once. I don't pay attention to these things but dh mentioned that there was some kind of American sports on the tv.

I know this isn't much help but I feel for you. I scheduled a trip during a the World Series. The good news is, that although he thought it mattered, when the time came and we were missing it, whatever we were doing was much more interesting. My husband is still alive and managed to pull though

Get someone at home to record it. Avoid checking the results on the web or in the papers (would imagine only the International Herald Tribune would publish the scores).

When DH wakes up early from the time change when you get back, he can open a brewski at 6:00 am and turn it on.

I know nothing about American "football", but this sounds like a typical Everton vs Manchester City match: a local grudge affair in a fairly obscure part of the country between two teams hardly anyone outside the cities concerned takes much interest in.

Now even though real football is the most watched sport the world has ever known, I've never been able to find a bar or pub showing Everton vs City outside the British Isles. Liverpool vs United, and the bars are crammed from Tokyo to Tuscaloosa - but whenever Everton plays City, there's ALWAYS a more audience grabbing match on at the same time (usually Liverpool vs United), and practically no foreign sports bar wastes time showing the grunters when the glamour boys are on.

This means one solution - going round sports bars hoping to find someone showing your match - is a complete waste of time: bars rarely publish game-specific advance schedules (except of course for real crowd pullers like a major rugby or cricket match), and all you accomplish is the irritation of your companions. Being dragged away from dinner to watch sport is bad enough: being dragged away to watch a completely different pair of teams is twisting the knife in the wound

Forums like this rarely help: they might point out a bar which will show minor sports like American "football" - but they've no way of knowing which specific matches will be on.

The answer, I've found, is (in the case of real football) to contact your team's fan club. For real football, the quandary is a common one, and fan clubs usually have a website with active members in most foreign cities who'll advise - or invite. In the case of your match, if there isn't that kind of worldwide fan club (that's the problem with following a sport few people follow outside your own country) your best alternative is to try to network through anyone you know who works for P&G (the Bengals) or - far more promising - for BP (in the case of the Browns). Certainly in the latter case, it's impossible to avoid finding a Browns fan somewhere in any city that's important to the oil industry, and no city outside the US has more Cleveland-origin BP staff than London.

You're going to find it hard to see this. You have two major problems:

Firstly American football has very little following here. There are a few who like it, but they're mainly in padded cells. What this means is that even if you can find a bar open, if there is any other sport on (and there always is) the other sport will be shown.

Secondly, the time difference. American football games start about one in the morning here - so there's not much open at that time, and what is isn't full of people watching rhinos bumping into one another.

But have a heart - there is a way. If your hotel has internet connection (and they all do) then with a bit of hunting round the net you should be able to find a live stream. I do this for real football and can always find what I want for a couple of quid payment.

I definitely think you will need to use the internet to see this. Alot of American sports in sports pubs here are pre-recorded 'classic' games...rarely, if ever, live. During the NHL playoffs the Maple Leaf (CDN pub in Covent Garden) plays the games, but they are recorded and played the next night. The time change makes it literally impossible to see them live as the pubs close usually at 11.

You could try Bodeans http://www.bodeansbbq.com/ they do great bbq ribs and always have american sports on - although like I said its always pre-recorded.

See if you can avoid running into people who insist on doing the "word-baiting" whenever something about "Amercia" comes up...if you think their teeth are bad, you're beginning to find out their education levels are what give meaning to the term 'parochial."

Oh, and best of luck with the football game...as in "football" which really MATTERS but I supect if you try really HARD you'll find some distractions.

There is one solution, if you have a laptop:

https://gamepass.nfl.com/nflgp/secure/registerform

If you have a good connection, the quality is very, very good - I watch it on my TV and can't tell the difference between it and a normal TV channel (save for the very occassional studder and the lack of certain commercials). You can watch live or after the fact.

NOTE: You MUST be outside the US (and Canada and much of the Caribbean) to sign up and to watch it. The system detects your IP address and restricts based on that.

I think this is your best (and probably only) option. Even if you were to find a bar showing American football, there is no guarantee that they will have this game. I doubt you can get Sunday Ticket on Sky, so you will probably be beholden to whatever game they decide to show. Since this is a 4pm game, you may stand a decent chance that it will be on, but I wouldn't count on chance for something as important as Bengals-Browns.

Considering that there is little demand to watch NFL games in the UK, that the start time for the game will be 9 pm in London and that these are two of the five worst teams in the NFL (Lions, Bengals, Browns, Chiefs, Rams), the chance that you will be able to see the game on TV is probably none.

I think travelgourmet has a pretty good solution for you, if you or your spouse is so insistent on watching two crap teams play a crap game that will decide little more than which team can waste a better draft slot in 2010.

As a contrast, consider also taking in an English Championship league match that afternoon. That way your husband (I'm guessing) will either watch 30,000 fans cheering their hearts out for teams they live and die for that have minimal overall relevance to soccer in the UK and he'll either: (1) feel reinforced in his belief that a Cincy-Cleveland game between teams that will combine to lose 22 of their 32 games this year is important; (2) feel that such a parochial and irrelevant matchup is not worth stressing over just as the Championship sides aren't worth setting one's schedule around for a Brit; (3) wonder at the Britons' tendency to pour their heart and soul into their picayune sports franchise while concurrently setting his watch by the irrelevant battle of Ohio.

Heck -- I'd have trouble finding a Browns/Bengals game televised back home let alone in London!

I believe you'll need a computer but simply Google

watching nfl games on computer

and you'll get a whole list of web sites that allow you to watch the games. Most have a fee but I saw a couple that advertise that they are free.

If I were you, I'd say, "aw what a bummer, no football in London. Let's go have fun since we spent $$$ to enjoy the city instead of watching football." D)

<i>Heck -- I'd have trouble finding a Browns/Bengals game televised back home let alone in London!</i>

This simply isn't true. The very fact that the game is a 4pm game means that it is a major game. There are far fewer 4pm games, which are assumed to be a bigger draw for the networks. If this were just another game, it would be slotted at 1pm.

All of this discussion of the quality of the two teams (and they both stink) is completely irrelavent. This is a major rivalry game, and professional football has few such genuine rivalries. Instead, we are left with manufactured rivalries, like Patriots-Jets.

travelgourmet: It was a joke fer cryin' out loud. Sheesh -- guess we need to add smiley faces so the too-literal minded among us might (maybe) understand . . . . .

(It might be on back home, but no one but desperate Bengals/Browns fans and those betting the over/under would have ANY interest)

Two things:

First, the game is at 1 EST, not 4. Check out NFL.com -- it's just another crap game at the time for crap games and intermittent good games or non-West Coast games. That means it starts at 6 pm in London, just in time to screw up dinner.

Second, 4 pm games are not necessarily showcase games. Every game in Seattle, Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, Arizona and Denver starts at 4 pm on the East Coast. St. Louis plays at half of those teams this year, KC plays at the other half, and no St. Louis or KC game is a legitimate showcase game because the Missouri teams are as awful as the Ohio teams. In addition, every week that the Jets and Giants both play on Sunday during the day, if the Giants are at home, one team must play at 1 PM and the other team must play at 4 pm due to local market television rules and the fact that the Giants always sell out.

janisj: I recognize it was a joke, even if it didn't come across that way, but the nature of this game has a lot of relevance when it comes to whether it will be on TV in the UK. Most foreign markets, if they show football at all, show the 'A' game. Regardless of how bad the teams are, Browns-Bengals is an 'A' game. To use the analogy someone else used, Liverpool-Man United would be an 'A' game, even if neither were competing for the premiership that year.

This isn't some sort of local grudge match, this is one of the few true grudge matches that the NFL offers. This is, perhaps, something that soccer fans don't grasp - Americans love the NFL, but only a few select groups of fans actually live and die with their team. The Browns have one of those few select groups of fans. That means ratings, and that means TV coverage.

"and those betting the over/under would have ANY interest)"

With these two teams, take the unders!

"<i>With these two teams, take the unders!</i>" . . . and a No Doz