The British Universities American Football League (BUAFL) is an American football league contested by university teams in the United Kingdom as part of the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) organisation. The league was formed by the British American Football Association (BAFA), the national governing body of American football in the UK, in 2007 as the successor to the British Collegiate American Football League, after BAFA withdrew its recognition of the British Student American Football Association which ran that league.[2][3] The BUAFL has been credited with reviving interest in American football in the UK.[4]
From 2008, the BUAFL was officially associated with the National Football League (NFL), through its partner organisation NFL UK.[5] In 2012, BUAFL's league and teams were absorbed into BUCS after American football became an official BUCS sport.[6] Over the period 2007 to 2014, the BUAFL grew from 42 teams and 2,460 participants to 75 teams and over 4,100 people involved.[7] It has remained at a similar size since, with 79 teams from 77 institutions and over 4,000 students involved in the 2024–25 season.[8]
As of 2024,[update] BUCS American football is entirely full-contact, but The Times has reported that a flag football competition is planned for the 2025–26 season.[9]
The BUCS American Football leagues are covered by multiple outlets such as American Football International and Sportank. The Latter of which starting live streaming games in January 2022[10] as well as hosting a weekly show called "The Rundown", predictions and rankings posts,[11] with Chris "Tebbs" Tebbutt being the key contributor and commentator for the BUCS fixtures.
In 2024, BUCS introduced a five-team Premier National division above the Premier North and Premier South. Only the national champions, UWE, were promoted from the Premier South with the other four teams being the four that qualified for the post-season from the Premier North. There was no relegation from either regional premier league after the 2023–24 season. The reorganisation retained six regional Tier 1 divisions and six (different) regional Tier 2 divisions. The Tier 1 divisions for 2024/25 were: Midlands and Yorkshire, Northern, Scottish, South Eastern, South Western, and Southern, and the Tier 2 divisions were Midlands, North Eastern, North Western, South Eastern, South Western, and Southern. The teams allocated to the premier divisions at the start of the 2024–2025 season were:[12][13]
A revised structure was announced by BUCS on 26 August 2016. This consisted of two Premier divisions, six regional Tier 1 divisions and six regional Tier 2 divisions.[14] This differed from the standard BUCS structure of five geographical regions below Premier level.[15] The Premier and Tier 1 divisions were considered to be of "high performance" by the BAFA and BUCS.[citation needed] For the 2023–2024 season, the Tier 1 regional divisions were Scottish, Northern, Midlands, Southern, South Western, and South Eastern, while the Tier 2 regional divisions were Northern A, Northern B, Midlands, Southern, South Western, and South Eastern.[16]
Over the course of the regular season, each team in the Premier and Tier 1 played between eight regular season games. Each team played everyone in their division twice; once home and once away. For the 2016/17 season, Tier 2 was broken down into six conferences, five of seven teams and one (South East) of eight; teams in Tier 2 playee a six-game season (seven in the South East division), playing each other only once.[14]
The first two full seasons of BUCS American Football preserved the single tier, eight conference structure inherited from BUAFL. In 2014–15, this was changed to a two tier system with the formation of two Premier divisions (North and South), each of five teams. The eight regional conferences, slightly reorganised (in particular, the small Scottish conference became the more balanced Borders conference, including teams from northern England) to contain 8 or 9 teams each, became the second tier. At the same time the Championship was reduced to the top two teams from each Premier division and the Challenge trophy was replaced with cup competitions for North and South Tier 1 divisional winners, with the winners being promoted to the appropriate Premier division.[15]
For the 2015–16 season, the league was split in three tiers. The premier remained organised into North and South, although the top four (of five) in each division now entered the Championship playoff, with the fifth being relegated. The second tier contained 6 geographic division, three Northern (Scottish North, Northern and Midlands) and three Southern (Western, South and Southeastern). The Trophy playoffs took the top two from each division plus the top two remaining teams with the best record from the northern and southern regions, the playoffs were structured with a "northern semi-final" and a "southern semi-final", with the semi-final winners promoted to the respective Premier division regardless of the result in the final. The third tier was organised into 8 divisions, four Northern (Scottish North, Northern, Midlands and North Midlands) and four Southern (Western, South, Southeastern and London).[15][17] The major change for the 2016–17 season was the reduction to six divisions (and a consequent increase in the number of teams per division) in the third tier (Tier 2), although not fully matching the geographical regions in the second tier (Tier 1).[14]
Championship qualification is shaded in green – there was no relegation in this season due to the league reorganisation; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss. Team names shaded in blue indicate promotion to the Premier National.
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and relegation is shaded in red; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and relegation is shaded in red; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
The 2019-20 regular season was completed prior to the suspension of university sports due to Covid-19, although only the first-round (quarter final) matches of the post-season were played and thus no overall champion was named.[25]
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and relegation is shaded in red; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and relegation is shaded in red; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and relegation is shaded in red; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and relegation is shaded in red; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and relegation is shaded in red; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and relegation is shaded in red; position in the Championship bracket is based on final positions in the two divisions. League position is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and trophy qualification is shaded in orange. Seeding is based on number of points scored, with 2 points for a win, 1 point for a tie and 0 points for a loss
Championship qualification is shaded in green, and trophy qualification is shaded in orange. Seeding is based on number of points scored, with 1 point for a win, 0 points for a tie and 0 points for a loss
The challenge trophy was replaced by the two divisional cups for the transitional 2014–15 season, which were replaced in turn by the national trophy from 2015–16.
Most valuable player (MVP) awards have been given out sporadically at best. There has been no central committee to give MVP awards since at least the 2015–2016 season.
^Ben Halls (30 September 2016). "Riding the Second Wave: The Resurrection of the NFL in the UK". VICE Sports. Archived from the original on 30 October 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2016. As any wannabe dictator will tell you, revolution simply cannot happen without grassroots action. That is it true in sport, too. For American football, that movement came not from the NFL itself, but was home-grown at British universities.
^Zander Swinburne (1 February 2014). "Super Bowl 2014: Move over, Wayne Rooney – gridiron's here". The Independent. The British Universities American Football League (BUAFL) had 42 teams before the first Wembley game in 2007 and 2,460 participants; now 75 universities are registered, with more than 4,100 players, coaches and officials
^"BUCS and Football America Sign Three Year Partnership". BUCS. 30 September 2024. Retrieved 4 October 2024. BUCS' American Football programme in 2024-2025 will see 79 teams from 77 institutions take part, with more than 4,000 students playing the sport.
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