The Jacksonville Jaguars will face the Houston Texans in the 2019 International Series, the NFL announced today. The Week 9 matchup will be played at London’s historic Wembley Stadium on Sunday, Nov. 3 at 9:30 a.m. EST.
The Jaguars, who are 3-3 in London and have won three of their last four games at Wembley Stadium, will appear in their seventh game in the NFL’s International Series. On Aug. 21, 2012, the Jaguars made history by becoming the first NFL team to commit to playing four home games at Wembley Stadium. Jaguars Owner Shad Khan, along with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, announced that the Jaguars would play one game each season in the United Kingdom from 2013-16. That deal was later extended through 2020.
The Jaguars’ footprint in London continues to grow, as the team has registered over 90,000 fans in the U.K. and are the third most popular NFL team in merchandise sales. Below is a look at a few programs the Jaguars have brought to the U.K. in an effort to lead the growth of American football.
JAGTAG: In 2015, the Jaguars launched JagTag, a simplified version of touch American football, tailored to a U.K. audience, to help encourage more people to play and understand the game. JagTag is now played in a range of schools across London, Newcastle, Manchester and Portsmouth with over 14,000 children now engaged in the program each year. Thanks to the first-ever Sport England Grant for an American sports program, further geographical expansion throughout the U.K. is planned for 2019, making the game even more accessible to kids across the country. For the first time in 2018, kids involved in the JagTag program became eligible for the LGT Vestra US GridIron Grant, a co-funded scholarship initiative provided by the Jaguars and Partner LGT Vestra US, offering two deserving recipients a full university scholarship in the U.K. each year.