NFL Academy in London eyes games, US college summer camps

By KEN MAGUIRE
AP Sports Writer

LONDON (AP) — The NFL Academy in London has top coaching and state-of-the-art facilities to help young prospects improve in American football. But it’s been missing one key component: games. The academy is part of the NFL’s initiative to establish a year-round presence in London and grow the sport’s popularity, in a model the league hopes to replicate in Germany when it brings regular-season games there. More than 80 teenagers, mostly from Britain, study, train and practice in hopes of landing a scholarship to play for a college in the United States. It launched two years ago. The pandemic meant no games but that changes Saturday when they face a squad from the University of East Anglia.