Timing is Everything!
Rewind to October 2019 and NFL Weekends was born, an idea which started from a stroll around the boundary with my friend and now business partner at our cricket club, became reality. In went my notice, off we went on 6 months of transatlantic adventures building the relationships that are the foundation of our business.
These 6 months can only be described as a roaring success, the response from the NFL Franchises in particular is something that I could never have imagined – the pride for their teams and national sport is something else and to have these huge world famous organisations on board with a small start up from Oxfordshire, England was and still is mind-blowing and although I say so myself, a feather in our cap.
I flew back from Miami on 11th March 2020 amid growing murmurings of a virus slowly spreading towards Europe and with the first American case just discovered in Manhattan. Naturally, optimism and a blaze attitude prevailed and one had no idea of the mayhem to come. We shortly enter into lockdown, the delaying of the schedule release and it was becoming abundantly clear that our Year 1 of operation would be totally decimated.
On a personal note, this was and still is a tough pill to swallow but swallow it I must, there are people in far worse positions than I and this is an (albeit large) hurdle that requires overcoming. Since the easing began, I would be lying if there aren’t difficult days and tears shed, it is a battle to stay positive amid regular bad news and naturally you fall over at certain times. This is Okay.
I relish the day where we can talk about how we started our successful sports travel company shortly before a global pandemic cancelled all sport and travel. I look forward to a renewed appetite for experiential travel, the watching of high level sport and a more ‘carpe diem’ attitude when it comes to making memories through the privilege of travel.
Thanks for reading, thanks for supporting and here’s to great days ahead.
James Ellwood
Co-Founder
NFL Weekends