The University of West England are known for being a powerhouse in American Football, with their team, the UWE Bullets, winning the national championship for the last four years in a row.
However, many people are saying it’s unfair, this is due to the fact that UWE a lot of their team are from America and have played the sport most their life.
Most recently, people have complained over the fact that this year they have a former Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Oklahoma Sooners player, named Chris Murray.
This had led people to question whether they are actually hurting the development of sport over here by putting up these players against some university students who may have never played the sport before.
However, I believe that these types of signings, and what UWE are doing is actually helping the sport in the UK, and here are a few reasons why.
Firstly, the engagement that this will bring to the UK will be phenomenal, it’s a hard sport to get people into mainly due to the name of ‘American Football’, even the official account for the British American Football Association only has 17.2k followers on Instagram.
Straight away, UWE’s engagement went through the roof after they announced the signing of Murray on their page, with over 500 likes and 1,000 shares, and I’m sure a bunch more views.
Engagement is huge for anything to grow, and this engagement, whether positive or negative, will bring loads of international eyes, and even homegrown eyes to the sport, building the image that the UK wants to take this sport seriously and make it something that is played often.
Secondly, I believe that these players will not only help improve their teammates by giving them knowledge that they’ve learnt over their life, but it will also help improve other players they play against and all around the UK.
I know if I were playing against a former NFL, or even college player, I would try my absolutely hardest to best them, purely to have that sense of “Oh, I’ve just bested someone who was at the top level”. I’m sure other players would also go into these games with the same mentality.
External eyes who may not play the sport yet that want to get into it will also want to try their best to have that opportunity to get to a high level and play with these types of players.
Finally, not only does this help out universities in growing the sport, but also external adult ball clubs who compete at a top level.
A good few UWE Bullets players often play for a local adult ball side, the Bristol Aztecs who mostly recently won the BritBowl, the national competition for American Football in the UK.
This connection between University and Adult ball sides paves a pathway for players to go to university, get a good education, and then once they leave university, carry on playing the sport they love.
This cycle allows people to push family in the future to play the sport, but also friends who may want to watch their mate play despite not knowing anything about the sport, this in return is a word-of-mouth cycle, driving up interest in the sport.
