The spectre of football matches between teams in the same country being routinely played somewhere else has come back with a bang to haunt the sport with European regulator UEFA allowing (with a stated regret that many find barely credible) one match each from Spain and Italy’s premier divisions to be played in the US and Australia respectively. UEFA cited regulatory gaps as a reason for not being able to stymy the plans.

Well in summer 2023, a thing called the Premier League Summer Series rolled through the Eastern USA – part charm offensive, part sales pitch. My beloved Brentford were on the roster and so the boy and me hot-footed it over to Atlanta to support the team there and at a following game in Washington DC. (An extravagance I admit, but fate, time, circumstance and finances may not align so fortuitously again. Carpe diem as they say.)

Given that accompanying the series was the predictable click bait speculation that real Premier League matches could be played over there too, I think it’s worth reflecting on the differences between how people interact with live sport – and footie in particular- on each side of the pond.

Americans “do” live sport – but it’s not like us

Why so? Well, the bottom line, in my experience, is that the way in which Americans experience their live sport seems to me to be worlds away from ourselves. The action on the field of play is marginalised, almost to the point of irrelevance. Consider the following:

The run-up to, the progress of and the aftermath of the match itself is heralded, compered, introduced and overwritten by, variously, Stadium announcers, match day hosts, a multitude of screens, depicting the action (at least I think that’s what they’re showing) from a dizzying variety of angles, and intermittent and usually very loud music, the relevance of which is not entirely clear.

The inability of stadium announcers to convey information about stoppages in play, substitutions, goal-scorers and the like concisely, and without turning it into an epic production, worthy of at least five Oscar nominations, is astonishing. As is the apparent absence of the word “nil” from their vocabulary.

These levels of astonishment are closely followed by the match day hosts appointed to try and coral the spectators into some form of quasi spontaneous emotion in support of the players either just about to take the field, on the field, or who have just left the field.

“Make some noise!”, or not as the case may be

However, there are only so many times that you can be exhorted to “make some noise” when the “noise“ being made can only come from the 800 or so people sat in the arena at the time. Even when the arena is more heavily populated, it is a struggle to get an atmosphere going for many reasons.

The first of these reasons is to do with segregation of the spectators. Or more accurately the lack of it.

Sport, especially football, has many tribal elements to it. In terms of how the audience is normally seated, this basically means that the there are (obviously) two groups of supporters, those for the home side and those for the visitors. Each group of supporters are sat together, which encourages, or even is responsible for, creating group behaviours, such as chants, songs, witticisms and “noise.”

Not grouping spectators together in this way defuses the energy of the crowd. This is something that seems lost on stadium announcers and match day hosts: It means their efforts are fundamentally flawed from the get-go.

We’re all friends even with beer at $16 a pint

I have to say there was complete amiability between members of all the tribes present, despite some long-established antagonisms and much beer being drunk (even at $16 a pint) But then this is the Summer Series, not a league fixture.

It’s one thing to have alcohol freely available, even to the extent that spectators can watch the match while sitting alongside in-arena bars, when nothing is at stake, other than bragging rights. In the context of a match between two close rivals with Premier League points up for grabs, the dynamics would inevitably be rather different.

There was no evidence to suggest that the stadium authorities in Atlanta had even considered this – and the consequent risks – as a possibility still less a necessity. I can only imagine when Atlanta United play their home games at the Mercedes-Benz Arena, there are no away supporters.

This of course resolves the problem, but is alien to British thinking. And having opposing sets of supporters attending the same match is not just a matter of crowd segregation. You also have to make sure that parts of the stadium itself are effectively water-tight containers to prevent two tribes colliding and clashing.

(You also have to consider about how those two groups of spectators will make their way to and from the stadium, unless you wish to subcontract that out to local law-enforcement authorities.)

All this could make the FIFA World Cup semi-final that is due to be held in Atlanta in 2026, an interesting affair.

And then there are other cultural issues that also fall into the mix.

Much of the chanting, singing and other witticisms generated by British football supporters are in fact, rather rude, offensive in tone and content. What was remarkable about the two games I saw was the total absence of any audible swearing from the crowd within my earshot.

Causing offence, bad language and endless chatter

Indeed, the offence the most rudimentary use of swear words seems to generate amongst what seem to be large sections of American society means that this cultural gap seems to be very wide indeed.

Whilst we all can agree that bad language at matches is a discouragement to significant numbers of potential fans attending, I suspect we are at the very beginning of a process to embed that idea in everyone who fails to last ninety minutes without a splattering of expletives.

Also, the Americans seem to love to talk. There is endless chatter. I have noticed this at baseball games in the US too. Conversation is the thing, not the game of sport. Throughout the games in Atlanta and DC, there was a an audible intrusive hum of conversation around the entire arena.

This is accompanied by, a somewhat lackadaisical approach to whether one is sitting in one’s seat or queueing at one of the innumerable bars or food outlets, whether the game has started or reached the halftime break, and the notion that if you do need to cause your neighbours to stand up to let you through to an aisle, you should move expeditiously as possible rather than stopping to chat in detail to the now standing people blocking the view for the two or three rows behind them.

Wonderful stadia – just not for football

But don’t get me wrong: Mercedes-Benz Arena in Atlanta, Georgia is a wonderful wonderful building. It looks like a spacecraft has landed gently from another world, an irregular polygon of glass and steel with fronds overlapping each other forming a protective bubble around the pitch. The roof is retractable or, as was the case yesterday evening, kept closed in order to maintain an air-conditioned 71°F for players, staff, and spectators.

FedExField in the outer reaches of Washington’s suburbs, was described to me as the Old Trafford of US (American) football. Unlike Old Trafford it is certainly not falling to bits. A cavernous bowl surrounding the pitch with great sight-lines, seats and space to move around. No roof in DC though, and it was a scorcher of an afternoon.

We’ll do us, you do you….

So just to be crystal clear, I am not saying all things British are right and American approach is wrong. I simply observe that the differences in style and habit mean that meaningful Premier League matches held in the US would have a very different feel to them, if indeed they took place at all.

Seeing queues of supporters wearing the colours of a myriad of clubs queuing for selfies with players brought home the cultural gap: put bluntly, there is no way a shirt-wearing supporter would want to be pictured with an opposing player in a truly competitive situation. It may be a shame but it is also true.

I felt wiped after both matches, a victim of sensory overload unique in my football experience. And so, for all these reasons, I think those who are flirting once again with the idea of Premier League games being held in the US have not really thought this through.

Then again, perhaps that is because they know as little about the game and how it is played as some of the new would-be U.S-based supporters and sponsors they are trying to sell the idea to.