Football has been a regular fixture at Elland Road for more than 100 years, but what are the chances it hosts the American version? With Leeds United in bed with San Francisco 49ers there is an obvious leap NFL could look to make in the future.
That was the question put to Alex Chang, 49ers’ chief marketing officer, this week on the eve of the new NFL campaign. With 49ers Enterprises a minority shareholder at Leeds, there is naturally an appetite to strengthen that West Yorkshire foothold as much as possible.
Asked if he could see 49ers playing at Elland Road, Chang told SportsPro Podcast: “I would love to be able to do that. I don't know if we can do that.
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“The league ultimately makes those decisions and they prefer some of the larger venues, but we certainly want to be able to have our players go to Elland Road. We want Leeds players to come to Levi's Stadium as well.”
Leeds fans may have noticed an uptick in activity from the San Francisco franchise in the UK in recent months. That’s because a new marketing licence was afforded to 49ers by NFL last December to operate in the UK.
It’s a window 49ers now have to get as many eyes as possible on their brand and build their supporter base. The connection with Leeds is an obvious partnership they have to look into.
Chang said: “We want to make sure we're leveraging that cross-relationship between the two organisations. We've already had Jesse [Marsch] here during the off-season and visited the team.
“We have several players in the 49ers who are soccer fans, who are now becoming Leeds fans because of our relationship there. We have 49ers fans who are becoming Leeds fans and vice versa.
“So there's definitely a lot of cross-pollination to be done. In fact, we're actually hosting a viewing party in the city of Leeds this weekend for our home opener against Chicago and we expect to have some representation from the team there.”
Said party begins at 4.30pm on Sunday at BOX sports bar in Leeds. 49ers kick off their season at 6pm against Chicago Bears.
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