On Sunday night, one of the great sporting stories comes to a finale. But in the UK, it’s really more like Monday morning.

As Tom Brady prepares to make history, his opponents will have to write their own in order to stop him. Either way, something memorable is about to go down in Minnesota as the New England Patriots take on the Philadelphia Eagles. It’ll be worth staying up for.

But if you think that the Super Bowl is about one game on one evening, then you’ve missed the action for the rest of the week. In the build up to the game, the NFL takes over its host town to throw the party of the year; the unfathomably cold city of Minneapolis in the last week of January is the venue for this month’s hottest event. A week packed full of festivities, parties and indeed unprecedented access to the players as well as the great and the good of American football royalty has unfolded already, as the public’s anticipation for the main event is cranked up to bursting.

For those of us in the UK, though, that Super Bowl fever is only hitting now.

FACT: a ???? can draw a crowd.#SBLII pic.twitter.com/ZdrNCec4rg

— NFL UK (@NFLUK) January 30, 2018

“In the UK, people won’t get that excited about it, apart from our real committed fans, until later in the week,” says Jamie King, Social Media and Digital Content Manager of NFL UK. “So although we’ve got a wealth of content coming from throughout the week, the numbers won’t start creeping up for us in terms of engagement until probably Wednesday or Thursday when people start really getting excited for the weekend and their late night on Sunday.”

The job of NFL’s UK team is to bring a taste of what’s going on to fans thousands of miles away. In Europe, there are hardcore fans and there are casual ones like there are for any sport, but treading the fine line of attempting to engage with both is an activity which needs to be carried out all year round. With even more fans that usual tuning into the showpiece event just because it’s a red-letter day on the sporting calendar, that just heightens the job.

“What we try to do is take people there, to Minnesota,” says King, “the fact it’s freezing cold, the fact there’s snow on the ground. We’ve got a lot more content around that and when the fans come in we’ll be showing that side of things, too.”

The public’s enjoyment of a sport is tinted by its coverage. The sound of a commentator’s voice, the personability of a pundit, or the phrases used by a presenter all become part of the lore. Just as the Premier League has Match of the Day, Martin Tyler and Gary Lineker, the NFL is gaining a similar heritage in the UK. NFL UK has very much tapped into that in the build up to this weekend’s big event. And it can do so all season, too.

Bill Belichick & @OsiUmenyiora – friends?! ????

A look back at last night's #SBOpeningNight in Minnesota! pic.twitter.com/fYiUXkLWJQ

— NFL UK (@NFLUK) January 30, 2018

“Neil Reynolds (Sky Sports’ NFL commentator), who we’ve used for years, is very well known in the committed fan base and he is very important to delivering the NFL in the UK,” says King. “And then we have Osi and Jason, almost on the other side of it, who have kind of brought a cool edge to the NFL and on the BBC.”

Osi Umenyiora, born in London and the owner of two Super Bowl rings, and Jason Bell are the faces of the BBC’s NFL highlights show, along with presenter Mark Chapman. But the success and the recognition that they have gained in the UK is something the league itself is cultivating, essentially working alongside their broadcast partners Sky and the BBC as a team, kicking back to them as much as possible and sharing the talent.

“We’ve seen huge successes on the highlights show,” says King, “and anyone who watches those guys really feels like they’re almost their mate. They’ve got this incredible charisma and this chemistry together. That really shines through and we try and bottle that up as much as possible.”

“Osi is such a big name in America, so he keeps getting interviewed more than some of the players! He can go up to Bill Belichick and just ask him questions, so he has that authority in spades, but he knows how to talk to a UK audience, which is really really important.”

The chemistry between the two men on screen, as well as their ability to bring the finer points of the game to a new audience in the UK is a golden nugget for the league’s growth. The committed fans who know their stuff certainly won’t be talked down to by the men who know the game inside out, but those who are coming at it from a casual or an NFL-curious standpoint are drawn in by the entertainment they provide, and that’s something which translates perfectly to NFL UK’s social media channels, too.

“Of all the talent i’ve ever worked with i’ve never known two people so popular,” says King. “If you watch Match of the Day, or you watch any kind of TV show and you search for the talent’s name on Twitter and there will be mainly negative feedback. And genuinely, we never ever read negative feedback.”

“What they’ve done so well is they know how to bring in a new audience.”

Sometimes, though, that audience doesn’t need anything extra. This weekend is the big finale to a drama-filled season, and no-one does hype like the National Football League. But this one sells itself.

The Philadelphia Eagles, a success-starved team from a football-mad city, and their hypercharged fanbase are eager for long-overdue glory in a season which appeared to be as good as over when they lost their star quarterback, Carson Wentz, to injury before the play-offs. Against the odds once again, here they are in the Super Bowl game thanks to some stunning defensive performances, making them perhaps the only team in the league suited to stopping the unstoppable Tom Brady and Bill Belichick from lifting another trophy.

In both sporting and narrative terms this one doesn’t need the hard sell, but for NFL UK, there’s another consideration – Eagles running back Jay Ajayi: A Brit in the Super Bowl.

“With Jay, we’ve seen a huge amount of success in working with him and working on his profile,” says King. “This is a guy who’s still got a twinge of a British accent, a guy who’s got family still in the UK, who comes back every year, is still massively in contact and cares a lot about the UK fans and what he means to UK fans. People hear a British accent and they can relate.”

“The other side of that is Tom Brady, his legacy and the six Super Bowl rings which he may be getting to after Sunday. I think anything around him and the fact he is one of the greatest sportsmen of all time and the fact he’s 40 years old and what he does to his body but also the respect that other sportsmen have for him: for example Harry Kane has spoken about how much of an inspiration Tom Brady is to himself.”

Next year, when the NFL comes to London again, they’ll play at Tottenham Hotspur’s new White Hart Lane stadium, purpose built for football with either ball – “It’s critical to have a home,” says King – and Kane himself has two dogs: one named Brady and one called Wilson, after Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson. Next year, the Seahawks themselves will kick off the London Games and a new era for NFL in the UK in Kane’s own stadium.

But that’s next season. We still have to finish this one first. And late on Sunday night, sports fans in the UK will have to make a sacrifice. To stay up for the Super Bowl is to pay the respect due of any sports fan to an event of global importance, but it is also to ensure that Monday morning starts off in a groggy, sleep-deprived stupor.

For all of the hype, the narrative and the drama that this game has already provided us with, it all comes down to this. For those who bow to greatness, Tom Brady is your draw. For the rest of the UK wondering whether they can justify the late night, this time, there’s skin in the game, too.