David Tossell didn’t go to the States back in 1982 to fall in love with America’s greatest sport.

Visiting friends in Long Island, N.Y., he happened to catch a Jets game. He’s been hooked on American football ever since.

"For me it was happenstance," said Tossell, now a spokesman for NFL International. "It just looked so different to anything we’d seen in the U.K."

American gridiron fans are used to that budding anticipation as the last weeks of August wane, when one must ask himself, is he in fact ready for some football?

This ingrained passion for American sports like football and basketball is increasingly making its way into the British sporting mind, as more and more people tune into to see what games are like on the other side of the pond.

The NBA hosted its second-annual exhibition game in London earlier this month, and this weekend, the New Orleans Saints and San Diego Chargers will throw down at Wembley Stadium, the second year of regular-season NFL action in England.

"We’re keen to see any American football in the flesh," Tossell said.

Fandom for American football is definitely on an upward curve, he said. Sky Sports shows about 130 football games a year, more than Premier League soccer.

The game appeals to many Britons because it’s something different in the land of footy, Tossell said.

"We never set out to say we’re better than soccer," he noted. "We think we’re a nice compliment to the existing sports here. There’s no reason you can’t be an Arsenal or Manchester United fan and be a Dallas Cowboys fan at the same time."

American football requires a commitment from the casual fan in order to understand the depth and complexity of the sport, he said, and people appreciate the fact that anything can happen on "any given Sunday."

Outside the NFL, teams like the Ipswich Cardinals, which play in the British American Football League’s Division I, are a consistent draw for locals, according to general manager Ralph Alexander. Ipswich is about an hour from RAFs Lakenheath and Mildenhall.

He said the game is "on the up" in England, and that the league is getting more teams every year who want to apply to the league.

Aside from the social side of folks coming to watch games, Alexander said the strategy of the game got him hooked 20 years ago.

"It’s a chess game," he said. "And it’s an out-and-out team game. If you don’t do something right somebody’s going to get hurt."

Britons are also waking up to the awesomeness of basketball.

Great Britain recently created a basketball team for the 2012 Olympics in London, according to Ian Mollard, the east region chair for England Basketball.

While basketball has been consistently popular with the youth, teams become scarcer at the adult level. Still, that is changing.

"Without a doubt it’s getting bigger and bigger," he said. "All indications I’m getting is that it will continue to get bigger, and a huge catalyst will be the Olympics."

Mollard noted how Spanish hoops emerged on the world stage after the 1992 games in Barcelona.

The sport appeals to many Britons because it’s about more cultural things than the game itself, he said.

"People like David Beckham are wearing number 23 because [Michael] Jordan’s his sporting idol," he said. "It’s such a rounded package, and it’s a cool sport for kids."

Kickoff is 5 p.m. U.K. time for the NFL game this Sunday. Tossell said he’s hoping the game foreshadows the next Super Bowl champion, like when the New York Giants played here last year before winning it all.

"The team that won last year at Wembley went to the Super Bowl," he said. "That’d be a nice streak for us."