American college football is heading to London next year with a match inked in for Wembley Stadium.
The Post and Courier said Arizona State and Kansas will take each other on as part of a multi-year deal for an event called the Union Jack Classic.
The first game is scheduled for September 19, 2026, at Wembley Stadium and it will mark college football’s first major foray into England.
The 90,000-capacity Wembley Stadium, currently branded as the Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons, is an association football stadium in Wembley, London, England (UK). It opened in 2007 on the site of the original Wembley Stadium which had stood from 1923 until 2003.
Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark has been looking to expand his league’s brand globally.
The Baylor women’s basketball team will play Duke of the ACC in Paris this November.
The Big 12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference in the United States. It consists of 16 full-member universities in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia. It is headquartered in Irving, Texas.
Yormark said, “We’re having conversations with other countries throughout the world that are very interested in bringing the Big 12 to their marketplace.”
The Union Jack Classic is set to become only the second American college football game played in London.
Richmond beat Boston University 20-17 in October 1988, in a match at the Crystal Palace National Sports Centre.
Ireland has been the most recent site away from the U.S. with the first game being played in 1988. Eight other games were played in the country before the Aer Lingus College Football Classic began its current run over the past three seasons.
The Big 12’s Texas Christian and North Carolina of the ACC are to square off in the next Aer Lingus College Football Classic next summer.
While college football games abroad are a rarity, the NFL is no stranger to crossing the Atlantic Ocean during the heart of it season.
Wembley Stadium has been the host site of 34 regular-season NFL games since 2007. Its highest attendance was last year, when 86,651 people maxed out the stadium’s capacity for the Jacksonville Jaguars’ 32-16 win over the New England Patriots. The Jaguars play the Los Angeles Rams there this season on October 19.
Tottenham Hotspur Stadium also hosts NFL games. More than 61,000 fans have attended each of the last five games played at the North London venue, just short of its 62,000-fan capacity.
Two games are scheduled there this season — the Minnesota Vikings vs. the Cleveland Browns on October 5 and the Denver Broncos vs. the New York Jets on October 12.
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