NFL: Sky Sports' Neil Reynolds speaks exclusively to GMS about his past Super Bowl experiences | OneFootball

The Super Bowl is one of the biggest events on the sporting calendar, with this year’s matchup featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.

And whilst it might not necessarily be the biggest event on the British sporting calendar, it is still rather impressive to see how much it has grown over the years, with reports suggesting that as many as 4 million people stayed up late to watch it back in 2021 when Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.

So it isn’t as if this is some minor event, there are going to be a lot of people tuning in, some of them perhaps for the very first time and will need to ensure they are in capable hands as the game drifts into the early hours.

That’s where Neil Reynolds comes in, as he returns to hosting Super Bowl on location for the first time since 2020, as travel restrictions prevented him from doing so in 2021 and 2022. Reynolds has been a part of the NFL’s coverage on Sky Sports since 2011 before taking up hosting duties a few years later.

He spoke to us in an exclusive interview and spoke about what his favourite city to go to for Super Bowl duties, what the event means to him, and whether one will ever come to London:

Neil Reynolds: Oh, good question. I do like Miami for the kind of proximities, when you're working at it, it's very much about how easy it is to get around the city. Our hotel in Miami was right next to where we were working every day. The Media Centre was 500 yards one way, the beach was 500 the other, it was sunny, beautiful. So Miami would be right up there.

I think Minneapolis was really good as a different city. They really kind of embrace their weather and ‘The Bold North’ as they called it, so I really liked that one as well. But once you get inside these media centres, they all kind of look the same. But certainly like Miami, Minneapolis, San Francisco is a favourite, although it's a bit more spread out there. So yeah, lots of different ones.

GMS: Do you still pinch yourself that you get to cover events like this? Obviously you’ve been covering the league since the late 80s, early 90s, does it still excite you that you get to cover and present for Sky Sports every year?

NR: Yeah, I think when I was a kid, and I'd watch the Super Bowls growing up, I'd be excited for them. You try and have an afternoon nap and it wouldn't work because you're so excited. Then I'd watch the people that are presenting on on British TV. And you just think about how cool it was that they were in the stadium talking about the Super Bowl and presenting it.

And so for me to go from being a fan where Super Bowl Sunday was like Christmas morning to being part of the history of the people that have told the story of the Super Bowl to the UK audience, it is very special, every Super Bowl is that way. I wake up on Super Bowl Sunday. I'm appreciative, it feels special. And I think back to the people that have done it before me, especially Kevin Cadle, who I worked with for many years, I'm very, very privileged to be another person presenting it to the UK audience.

GMS: How has the Super Bowl experience changed since you’ve covered it? It seems to get bigger and bigger every year with things like Opening Night that happened a few days ago.

NR: I think it's just that media interest around it gets bigger and bigger. It gets glitzy or more glamorous. You mentioned Opening Night that's a very choreographed and staged thing now which has become an event in it’s own right with the journalists dressed in fancy dress interviewing other journalists about how amusing and funny they are.

So it is a real week-long event now, you've got the player availabilities, all of those kinds of things make make a big difference to building up the week. I always think it's always been quite the spectacle. I think they just made it even more so over the last few years.

NR: I think just in recent years, the story of Nick Foles. He had a brief spell as a starter then he was a journeyman quarterback, suddenly thrust into the starting lineup and he takes down Tom Brady, you know, it doesn't get much bigger and better than that.

But I think over the years telling the Tom Brady story at the Super Bowl has been it's been a big thing. I've seen him win multiple Super Bowls, I've seen him lose a couple when he was the best player on the field. So you think about Brady in our lifetime going to 10 Super Bowls, winning 7 of them, to have been there when he's when he's won those games to seen how much he puts in when he lost them. Brady’s kind of the longest story that I would say over the years I've been covering Super Bowls.

But it's all about the moments. You know, the Philly Special the Malcolm Butler interception. I mean, you can go on and on with all these different ways Super Bowl sticks in your mind. And the thing is, every year going into a Super Bowl, you could have 50 storylines. Literally, this is a great Super Bowl for stories and you never know who's going to be the hero. It literally could be anyone. Malcolm Butler was an undrafted free agent cornerback. Who no one had heard of really until he pounced and incepted Russell Wilson. Changed his life, wrote his name into Super Bowl history. That's how quickly things can change.

GMS: You're talking about Super Bowl memories. Do you think that there's ever going to be a chance for Super Bowl memories to be made in London?

NR: I asked this question once of the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, Clark Hunt. And I thought he was going to shoot it down straight away. And he said “all options on the table, internationally.”

I think it's been well-documented that I'm a big supporter of a London franchise and of international growth. And I think we should have a team in London, we should have multiple teams in London, we should have teams in Germany, I think when we could support a European division, we should have the Draft, the Jags should come and do training camp in the UK. We're not getting a Super Bowl. We're not getting a Super Bowl.

It's the ultimate American experience. For starters, it has always kicked off at the time it does 6:25 Eastern or whatever, that's 11:30 on a Sunday night in London. So it's sadly not going to happen. But we can make do with a lot of other good things that we have our way.

Once they start doing these neutral site conference championship games, we'll have one of them.