LONDON (AP) — Andy Burrows calls the NFL’s ticketing strategy for Sunday’s game at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium “a bit shambolic.”
After charging up to 245 pounds ($325) for tickets to see the Indianapolis Colts face the Washington Commanders, the league reduced prices in a bid to sell out the north London stadium, following slow sales in comparison to past years.
It stings for the fans who paid full price this summer when tickets first went on sale. And it comes as the league charges ahead with its international growth plan.
“They don’t care about the fans. As long as that place sells out and it looks good on TV, the NFL won’t care about us,” Burrows said. “And I’m not alone. I speak to fans every day.”
The league, facing the possibility of attendance at a Tottenham game slipping under 60,000 for the first time, recently slashed remaining tickets down to 79 pounds ($105) — its lowest 2026 category — including for some high-end seats.
Burrows spent 235 pounds ($312) for a lower-bowl seat near the 15-yard line during a pre-sale this summer, intent not to miss out on seeing the Commanders — his favorite team. An empty seat near him sold this past week for the discounted price.
The London native isn’t just any fan. He was an NFL international fan of the year in 2025 in recognition of his passionate support of the Commanders.
The NFL, which historically sees strong demand for its London games, recently emailed fans about the price reduction and made tickets available on UniDays, which posted offers of half-off tickets for university students.
“People now will just be like, ’I’m going to wait. Why should I buy a ticket when they get released?' ... That’s the risk they’ve done — depending on the games,” Burrows said.
Local fans like Matt Cullen, who has raised concerns about prices and “team fatigue" in London, say tickets should have been more affordable at the start.
“I understand the clamor to sell out, but it also shows that it wasn’t priced correctly in the first place,” said Cullen, a New York Jets fan who has said the league has “priced me out.”
The Colts-Commanders game had seen earlier price reductions. In an upper-tier section, for example, some seats started at 185 pounds ($245) and were down to 115 pounds ($152) in late August before dropping to 79 pounds.
Demand could also be impacted by the NFL holding three other games in Europe this season: Paris, Madrid and Munich will each host a game.
The NFL did not respond to requests for comment.
Ten days before the Colts-Commanders game, there appeared to be more than 2,000 tickets available, each priced at 79 pounds on Ticketmaster, the NFL’s official outlet for tickets.
The stadium’s capacity for Premier League soccer matches is 62,850, but it’s lower for NFL games because of logistical needs.
The NFL has staged 12 games at Tottenham following the opening of the stadium in 2019. Official attendance has never been below 60,000. The highest was 61,273 for the Jaguars-Bills game in 2023 when Buffalo fans packed the stadium.
Jonathan Fry, a lecturer in business and management at Aberystwyth University in Wales, said the price drop to 79 pounds “will either result in fans delaying purchasing when the tickets go on sale or that the NFL adjusts their ticket prices next year.”
“There could be a reputational risk for the NFL due to frustrated fans,” added Fry, who has researched event ticketing.
Longtime fans say the NFL’s decision to discontinue its “season tickets” program — which allowed bundle purchases for league-run London games at once — was a turning point in league-U.K. fan relations. Ticket prices had already been rising, but fans noted significant increases from 2024 to ’25 after the program was eliminated.
Fans have aired their complaints on NFL U.K.’s social media posts.
Still, it appears if the right team is in town, tickets will sell quickly.
Sunday marks the first of three London games this season. In Week 5, the Philadelphia Eagles face the Jacksonville Jaguars at Tottenham — and that game sold out right away, likely due to the popularity of the Eagles.
To boot, prices for the Eagles-Jags game were higher than the Colts-Commanders matchup.
The third London game features the Jaguars against the Houston Texans at Wembley Stadium on Oct. 18. The Jags — not the NFL — run the Wembley game and handle ticketing. Thousands of seats remain unsold three weeks ahead of that game.
See AP’s full NFL coverage here
Washington Commanders quarterback Marcus Mariota (8) passes the ball during the first half of an NFL football game against Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026 in Landover, Md. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)
Indianapolis Colts quarterback Daniel Jones looks to throw a pass against the Houston Texans during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Sept. 27, 2026, in Indianapolis. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
ATLANTA (AP) — Republicans once saw Georgia and North Carolina as promising pieces of their strategy to keep control of the Senate. But hopes of winning the two states have been fading, and the GOP is increasingly focused on playing defense elsewhere with five weeks until the midterm elections.
Republicans haven't abandoned the Southern battlegrounds, which Donald Trump carried narrowly in the 2024 presidential race, though they are shifting greater resources to states they see as more competitive. The party now is spending heavily to defend reliably Republican Texas, and Trump is planning to campaign for the Republican incumbent in Ohio, both places Trump won easily in 2024.
Some Republicans also have become more vocal in their complaining that Trump has squandered an opportunity to more comfortably hold off Democrats this fall. Among their grievances, they say the president failed to bring the unpopular war in Iran to a close, has dismissed the pinch of high fuel prices and engaged late in the midterm campaigns.
And though Democrats must still win several seats Republicans hold to win back the majority, the GOP is looking more at protecting seats they already hold than picking up Georgia, and they are signaling serious problems in North Carolina.
“There is a Republican turnout problem due to the administration's failure to address the economic concerns of voters,” North Carolina Republican strategist Paul Shoemaker said of the state's U.S. Senate race.
Republican Senate campaign leaders are looking past Georgia businessman Mike Collins' challenge of first-term Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff to states they viewed as more competitive to focus future spending, according to two Republican Senate campaign officials familiar with Senate leadership's thinking. The campaign officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.
Ossoff has swamped the successful trucking company executive in fundraising. Collins has also struggled to broaden his support beyond Georgia's Republican base.
Despite Senate Majority Leader John Thune's two-day campaign and fundraising trip to Georgia this month, some local party leaders were publicly pessimistic.
"He just doesn’t have what it takes to beat Ossoff,” said Tim Waters, Peach County Republican Party chair. “It’s hard enough trying to beat an incumbent, and you have the president of the same party in a tough midterm, right? I don’t think he’s got much of a shot.”
Republicans had viewed Georgia early in the 2026 campaign as a potential firewall, should Democrats win in a critical number of states where Republican seats are on the ballot. Democrats must win a net of four seats to win back the majority.
But Ossoff has already spent $57 million in advertising and had $13 million reserved through the election, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And while outside groups aligned with Collins had spent more than $52 million, AdImpact shows, Collins' campaign confirmed it had no advertising time immediately reserved.
Retiring Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis stopped short of suggesting GOP candidate Michael Whatley's chances of holding the seat for the party had vanished, but implied it was time to take a hard look at how long to continue spending heavily against Democratic former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper.
“We've got to place our bets on the candidates that are the best run, either ahead or within striking distance,” Tillis told reporters Monday in the Capitol. “You've got to change your posture going into the last — we've got 36 days.”
Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chairman, has been a darling of Trump, who campaigned for him this month. But enthusiasm for Trump seems to have fallen even with a number of Republicans who voted for him, said Shoemaker, a Tillis adviser. Trump narrowly won North Carolina in 2024.
“The blue-collar, working-class voters that Donald Trump brought to the Republican Party is the one that's being most impacted by higher energy prices, and it's dampened their enthusiasm to turn out and vote,” Shoemaker said.
Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP's leadership super PAC, had $19.5 million in advertising booked in North Carolina, having spent $30.4 million to date.
“Do I think Roy Cooper is going to win the race? I absolutely do,” said Michele Woodhouse, former Republican chair for North Carolina's 11th Congressional District and a devout Trump supporter.
“Roy Cooper, for Republicans, is the worst Democrat candidate who could be running for this seat," Woodhouse said. “He’s never lost in a statewide race. He’s very popular.”
In Texas, where Democrats have not won a Senate election since 1988, Republicans' Senate Leadership Fund is spending more than it is in any of the states it set out to defend early in the year. The group this month pumped more than $100 million into advertising in Texas to back up state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who faces Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in a race viewed as very competitive.
Trump endorsed Paxton over four-term incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary. GOP campaign leaders considered Paxton a potential drain on Republican resources because he has for years faced legal, ethical and personal questions. They include a felony indictment, impeachment charges and extramarital affairs, though Paxton was never convicted.
Senate GOP leaders had suggested Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., would carry a good portion of the advertising load after Paxton beat Cornyn in the May GOP Senate runoff. Neither the National Republican Senatorial Committee nor SLF had included spending on Texas in its midterm budget.
As of Monday, MAGA Inc. has committed more than $20 million to ads supporting Paxton so far this month, compared with the $124 million from SLF.
Should Democrats win North Carolina and Texas, they would only need to win two of the remaining competitive Republican-held seats — in Alaska, Iowa, Maine and Ohio — as well as hold competitive Democratic-held seats in Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire to capture the majority.
Trump plans to visit Ohio on Saturday to support Sen. Jon Husted as the Republican tries to fend off a competitive challenge from Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown. The president plans to campaign with Husted in Vandalia, near Dayton in southwest Ohio.
Senate Republican campaign leaders have complained that spiking gas prices, a result of the seven-month-long war with Iran, are among the issues weighing against candidates that Trump has exacerbated.
Campaigning with Whatley last week, Trump called higher fuel prices “a very inexpensive price to pay” for preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Though gas prices are near historic highs, they are still below the nationwide record set in 2022.
It's prompted some candidates, such as Iowa's GOP Senate nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson, to speak out.
“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” she said last week.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds dismissed that the Republican majority was slipping away, but suggested senators needed to act on fuel prices.
“We have to stay focused on the fact that we know that gas prices are too high, and diesel is way too high," the Republican said.
Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa, and Sloan from Washington. AP reporter Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump listens as North Carolina Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley speaks during a rally at Gastonia Municipal Airport, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, in Gastonia, N.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
