BBC coverage begins on September 10th with ‘Touchdown USA’ – a one off documentary filmed in November 2015, in which Reggie Yates explores the city of Green Bay, Wisconsin and their iconic NFL team, the Green Bay Packers. Watch the trailer here.
Whilst there currently appears to be little information revealed about the show just yet – watch this space – I did some digging and came across a radio interview with ‘1 on 1 With The Boys’ with Micah Hyde and Justin Perillo where they speak with Reggie Yates who just landed in Green Bay for the BBC documentary.
Reggie speaks about what he has discovered on his journey at Green Bay so far: “I’ve learnt that this city loves and absolutely adores this teams. It’s crazy that they are almost one and the same. It feels as though, off the back of the people I’ve met, everything from the Gazette right the way through the Mayor, everybody is involved in the team, led the team in some way.”
They go on to talk about the closeness of it’s players to their fans, something here in the UK I wouldn’t say we have with our sports. “For NFL players to be hosting radio shows is just a crazy sort of thought because I’m a massive Arsenal fan, I was born and raised in North London and the club that I support and grew up with, my local team is called Arsenal. None of the players really interact with the fans in the way that you guys do.”
They also go on to discuss how accepting the people in London (and the rest of the UK might I add) are of NFL Football. “We’re learning about it. I hosted the thing for Nike with Buffalo Bills, with a couple of the Buffalo guys who are in London for the last NFL game in the UK and they love the city, some of them were even allowed out to see the city and meet people and smell the air but yes, it seems as though we’re slowly but surely starting to understand game and part of the main reason that we’re here is because the BBC, the channel that I work with, now have the rights to show the league.”
Surprisingly, it has only had 238 views on YouTube. It’s an interesting watch with lots of great questions, watch the full radio interview here.
https://youtu.be/3n2_corPOD8