British Universities American Football League
BUAFL logo
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| Sport | American football |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2007 |
| No. of teams | 83 (2016-17 season) |
| Country |
 United Kingdom
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| Most recent champion(s) |
Birmingham Lions |
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. The BUAFL has been credited with reviving interest in American Football in the UK.
From 2008, the BUAFL was officially associated with the National Football League (NFL), through its partner organisation NFL UK. In 2012, BUAFL's league and teams were absorbed into BUCS after American football became an official BUCS sport. 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.
The reigning national champions are the Birmingham Lions (11-0), who secured the championship by defeating the Stirling Clansmen 19-13.
Over the course of the regular season, each team in the Premier and Tier 1 plays between eight regular season games. Each team plays everyone in their division twice; once home and once away. For the 2016/17 season, Tier 2 is broken down into six conferences, five of seven teams and one (South East) of eight; teams in Tier 2 play a six-game season (seven in the South East division), playing each other only once.
The latest structure for the BUAFL system was announced by BUCS on 26 August 2016. It consists of two Premier divisions, six regional Tier 1 divisions and six regional Tier 2 divisions. This differs from the standard BUCS structure of five geographical regions below Premier level.
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.
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