NTU’s American football team are in with a chance of winning a day to train with the NFL Jaguars after taking Twitter by storm in a unique competition.
Nottingham’s own student American football team, the Renegades, are in the lead in the social media competition which could mean the chance to spend the day with a National Football League (NFL) team in November.
This is the first time the competition has come to the UK and the criteria is simple.
Those whose hashtag on Twitter, consisting of their team name followed by “NFL”, is retweeted the most times win the competition.
Leading with over 250,000 retweets so far, the NTU Renegades are in with a good chance of winning the competition which ends on Friday.
New figures show a big increase in those both playing and following the sport in the UK. Since the NFL International Series came to Wembley in 2007, the numbers of those playing the sport has doubled and the NTU Renegades have seen recruitment grow ever since.
More than 100 students have been attending the team’s training sessions each week as interest in the sport within the university has risen by 20% compared with last year.
Team coach, Karl Walkinshaw said: “Interest in the game is growing, in terms of spectators but also in terms of general fans and the amount of people playing it.
“That creates a snowball effect for the game in this country. We continue to see more teams coming over and perhaps, fingers crossed, even a UK franchise at some point.”
Media Manager and player for the Renegades, Calum Chalmers, is sure his team will be training with the Jacksonville Jaguars later this year.
He says:
“We are leading by miles and we’ve never looked back. It’s ours, I hope.”
