‘NFL growth global; fandom growing like never before’

Article posted by Coliseum, July 23^rd, 2026

Image: Coliseum GSVA

Mackenzie Cadman who is the Operations Manager for the National Football League (NFL) team Jacksonville Jaguars in the United Kingdom was “never an American football fan and had to learn the game”. He has been in the NFL industry for a decade – with the NFL for seven years and with the Jacksonville Jaguars for four years. He is involved domestically both in the United States and in the UK.

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Mackenzie Cadman is the Operations Coordinator for the NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars in the United Kingdom. His role within the organization acts as an integral part of the Jaguars franchise both in the United Kingdom and the United States.

In a riveting conversation for ‘Coliseum’, Mackenzie Cadman, UK Operations Manager, Jacksonville Jaguars, US, tells Neil Levett, Emcee, Coliseum, that the one thing “I would say I have seen changing with the NFL is the scale of the fandom. The NFL growth is global” and it all started when the first regular-season game was played at the Wembley Stadium (UK) in 2007. The Jacksonville Jaguars started playing at the Wembley in 2013 and they have been coming back since then. States Cadman, “Today, when I walk the streets in London, I can automatically pick out team caps that the people are wearing and I think more teams and more sports are following the concept of what the NFL are doing. I think the National Basketball Association (NBA) is launching a European league in 2028. The fans have more access now to watch American football here in the UK than they ever had.” He also narrates to Levett what the NFL games are like in the UK and talks about the Jags ‘Stadium of the Future’.

NFL

New York (US)-based the National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Canada and the highest professional level of American football in the world.

Jacksonville Jaguars

The Jacksonville Jaguars (colloquially known as the Jags) are a professional American football team based in Jacksonville, Florida (US). The Jaguars compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a Member of the American Football Conference (AFC) South Division. The team plays its home games at the 67,814-seat EverBank Stadium.

‘Stadium of the Future’

The Jaguars’ ‘Stadium of the Future’ is a massive $1.4 billion renovation of the EverBank Stadium. The project will transform the current home of the NFL team Jacksonville Jaguars into a 63,000-seat, open-air, climate-responsive venue and is scheduled to officially open in August 2028.

The Jacksonville Jaguars are a single NFL franchise based in Florida, US. They play most of their home games in the United States but frequently travel to the United Kingdom to play a portion of their home games as part of the NFL’s International Series. They play their matchups at the 90,000-seat Wembley Stadium and the 62,850-seat Tottenham Hotspur Stadium – both in London.

NFL London Chapter

Mackenzie Cadman started the talk by stating, “We are essentially London’s NFL team. We have been playing games in London for the last 14 years. This year we have recently announced two back-to-back home games here in London. One of them is in the Wembley Stadium which we actually manage ourself. Essentially, all the other international NFL games are managed by the NFL. The Jags Owner Shahid Khan made a pledge to the Wembley Stadium and the league that we would become London’s team in 2019 and since then I have been managing the operations for the Wembley Stadium for those games.”

NFL Globalization

Cadman shared with Neil Levett that the “globalization of the NFL in the last 10 years has been incredible. When the NFL season starts in September they will be playing the first week of the season in Melbourne (Australia), the third week is being played in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and then they bounce into the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium and the Wembley Stadium and they continue on throughout the next couple of years.”

Levett mentioned that the NFL game in the Wembley Stadium was the largest capacity event and Cadman agreed – “We hold the international record for 87,216. I believe that we broke that in 2024.”

Economic Engine

Levett also mentioned about the ‘Stadium of the Future’ and Cadman dished out the deets – “The ‘Stadium of the Future’ is currently under construction. Its actually fit into the operation of the business a lot more I think what they thought when talks first began in 2016 obviously prior to the contract with the Wembley Stadium. The conversations began in 2016. They formalized the deal with the city of Jacksonville in 2023 and the build started earlier I think in August last year. The construction has essentially started from the top down, the depths of the stadium will stay the same. We are taking down the top blocks of the stadium and we are going to go to a capacity of 42,000 and before it was 62,000 and then we are going up to 64,000 and the reason for the increase now being not lodged is due to the fact that we are quadruple in the sizes of the concourses. We have 14 hubs essentially with the fans we have spoken to prior to the construction starting. Shahid Khan wants to create an economic engine. The stadium will open in 2028.”

Façade

Commented Cadman, “The outside façade as you look it reflects light and from the inside out you can see the St. Jones River and all the views and so we can imagine the reflective sunglasses and actually that is the concept we are looking for. A company called Hawk-Eye innovations developed the concept and the design following a competition period for the design process and we are very excited.”

Pitches

Levett wanted to know what the new facility will boast – grass pitches or astro pitches.

Informed Cadman, “We are going to continue with the sod field. We are one of the only NFL stadiums to have a natural grass surface and the canopy on the top of the stadium and essentially there is not another one right now in the world and that actually decreases heat up to 10 to 15 degrees. The actual canopy itself is developed by composite polymer with the new technology that we are bringing in but we are very excited to ensure that our fans can actually enjoy the games. For the turf the protective heat will develop, the grass will essentially grow without the grow lights. It will be very much a multipurpose facility. Once the ‘Stadium of the Future’ opens we can start attracting those big events – a Super Bowl, an NFL Draft. We have missed the date for the 2026 World Cup and that would have been an aspiration if we would have been able to build the venue earlier.”

Sum-up

Replicating

Mackenzie Cadman summed up by stating – “Yeah, everything that we do back home domestically in the US I try to bring to the Wembley Stadium and I want to ensure performance on the field when they travel to London especially with the investments, the people that we fly over, the time that we spend. We fly about 195 people. Players, obviously 52 players on a roster, 16 to 20 practice squad and then we have a core athletic team from coaches to treatment people and all those kinds of staff members that fly simply on that plane. And everything we try and do in the Wembley Stadium we try and mimic what we have back in Jacksonville currently. We have to flip the Wembley Stadium into an American football stadium.”

He concluded by stating that for the Jags new facility they have taken pages out of the Wembley Stadium – “From a concept perspective definitely with the sonics and the sound around the stadium and the glass windows at the top curve around in the Wembley bouncing back. We have done a similar thing with the roof and the curves in the Jags arena like how it is in the Wembley Stadium.”

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