SPECIAL REPORT: With nine Premier League clubs under American control and no TV blackout, English football is BOOMING in the US… just ask the fans in sleepy San Francisco, who watch their teams at pubs before 6am

It is 5.50am in San Francisco’s historic North Beach district and all is quiet. This is the place made famous by giants of American literature, where Jack Kerouac and his pals would party until the early hours picking up inspiration for novels and poetry that would inspire generations. 

On this Sunday morning nobody is raising hell and the almost-vertical streets lay silent in darkness. Shutters are down at the bars and bohemian clothes stores, as they are at the City Lights bookstore, familiar to millions. But a short stroll up Grant Avenue takes you to Maggie McGarry’s pub, where the light is on and the door is open. 

Inside, a group of around half a dozen huddle at barstools in front of a television. 

Mick Graham, the owner, is pouring Irish coffees. He is wearing a maroon-coloured Manchester City jersey from 2008 with the name of former hero Elano on the back. On the screen, the current-day version of City are about to take on Luton Town and while the rest of town may be asleep, this hardy group would not miss it for the world.

‘I’ve been here since 1989 and there was no chance of watching City back then – which is probably a good thing given how rubbish we were,’ says Dave Humphreys, who moved here to work during the tech boom and stayed on.

The Premier League product is booming hugely in the US, with San Francisco no exception

Dave is 60. He is on the board of San Francisco Vikings, a local youth soccer club, and so is well-placed to comment on the Premier League’s incredible growth in America – which he relays through an enduring Salfordian accent.

‘The tsunami of the Premier League in the US is coming,’ he says. ‘My daughter is 15 and she plays. Every single girl on her team has a Premier League team. Every game is on television now, on YouTube. 

A stroll up Grant Avenue takes you to Maggie McGarry’s pub, where the light is on and the door is open in the early hours of the morning

‘We have 800 families at the club. If you talk to seven-year-olds it’s the same. It’s City, Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea – not many United! When I got here all you got was the league table in the San Francisco Chronicle the next day. Now it’s everywhere.’

Dave, who retains two season tickets at the Etihad, had no qualms about leaving the warmth of bed at 5am. 

‘There’s a huge sports culture here,’ he explains. ‘It’s part of life. If it was the UK you’d probably get called an idiot but here they understand the insanity. And the beauty of being on the West Coast is that the game finishes and its 8am, so if they’ve lost you can do something different with your day. Although if your Quin, here, you can stay and booze all day.’

Quin Roberts, 23, is sat on the next stool. Another City fan, he is the son of a father from Hull, who started supporting the club in 2011. 

‘At the end of the season it was 93 plus 20,’ he explains, referring to Sergio Aguero’s momentous title-winning goal. ‘After that it was never going to be anyone else.’

When Luton take an unlikely 1-0 lead City would later overturn, Mick – originally from Dublin – jokes that he is switching his phone off. 

‘Myself and my wife took this place over in 2006,’ he explains. ‘It was a music bar. Janis Joplin had her first paid gig here. It’s now music and football. The change (in the Premier League’s popularity) since we started has been incredible. It’s always on TV now and everyone has a club. 

‘We open at 4am for some games and we’re the base for the local Arsenal supporters club and there’s lots of them, as you saw yesterday.’

Several supporters also showed up at the establishment to see Arsenal’s 5.30pm kick-off against Aston Villa – watching the game at a more palatable time of 9.30am over in America

Arsenal fan Mark Barbeau, seen in a full red adidas tracksuit emblazoned with the words ‘Bay Area Gooners’ and wearing a flat cap, organised a trip to London to watch the Gunners

The previous day Mick had also worn a City shirt but on that occasion the bar felt like a very different environment. For Arsenal’s visit to Aston Villa, a 5.30pm kick-off time in the UK translated to a more palatable 9.30am here. The place was rammed with a noticeably young crowd, most of whom wore red and white official Arsenal merchandise. 

The love – and the knowledge – of the game was real. There were cries of anguish when Mikel Arteta’s side had a goal chalked out in a 1-0 defeat, triggering a chant of ‘f*** VAR’, while songs including ‘we hate Tottenham’ and cries of ‘Come on Arsenal’ boomed out more than 5,000 miles from London. Amid a group of friends at one table were young couple Jackson Robison and Chryslin Perkins. 

‘We talk a lot about the third place,’ Chryslin, 23, explained. ‘You have home and work and for a lot of people the third place is the internet, where you find community. It’s a weird time in America when there’s so much turbulence – soccer is one of the things that brings people together. 

‘When we’re in here, nothing else in the world matters. We went to an Arsenal game in London in the summer which was awesome.’

Jackson agreed. ‘We’re from Texas originally and when we were at school it was all about American football but that’s changed now. Now, everyone has a team.’

Stood by a stage once taken by Jefferson Airplane and Starship’s Grace Slick, in a full red adidas tracksuit emblazoned with the words ‘Bay Area Gooners’ and wearing a flat cap, was Mark Barbeau – the group’s founder who it transpires built this city after a cocked-up goal. 

‘My first Arsenal game was in 05-06 when I went to London with my now wife to visit her sister,’ he said. ‘I sat in the North Bank. It was the game when (Thierry) Henry and (Robert) Pires messed the penalty up against City. My wife said I went in a casual fan and came out a drooling idiot.’

The love and the knowledge of the game was real as fans watched and supported their club

Shutters are down at the bars and bohemian clothes stores but football is still on in some pubs

Mark quickly set to work setting up an Arsenal fan club in the Bay Area. ‘I saw someone walking down the street with an Arsenal shirt on. I ran after them shouting “hey! Arsenal!” They told me they had no idea what I was saying – and that they were a video game nerd who bought it because it said (former sponsor) Dreamcast on the front. That’s how desperate for members we were. 

‘Back then, there was only a couple of pubs showing games but now it’s all changed – we pack them in most weekends.’

Premier League mania has not gone unnoticed at the league itself, which last July opened an office in New York, with the aim of driving growth. There is already a solid foundation. 

According to its last report, the competition had been watched in 122m households in the US. In April, the Premier League and broadcast partner NBC Sports will host a fan festival in Nashville, Tennessee after previous events in the likes of Washington D.C., New York, Boston and Los Angeles. Liverpool’s match with Arsenal on December 28 delivered the largest-ever audience for a top-flight fixture in the US (1.96m watched on NBC). 

While that figure may not jump out, it is bigger than the average for a televised Premier League match in the UK. It was also an audience that topped every other sport bar American football in the US that weekend and even attracted bigger numbers than two of the five traditional, festive College Football Bowl matches. 

There is a thirst for content. NBC Sport’s YouTube channel finished last season with more than 230 million views, which was up 20 per cent year on year. Americans devoured more than 1.7bn minutes.

Thanks to the lack of a 3pm blackout, those in the US get to see more top-flight football than those in England. Since signing their deal in 2013, NBC Sports has presented all 3,800 Premier League matches.

The fact that nine clubs are under American control has not hindered what appears to be a lucrative and relentless march. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the US generates the largest audience of any of the Premier League’s international territories while the competition’s cumulative numbers last season were three times that of all other soccer properties on the market. Close to 40 million have watched each season since NBC started showing matches.

Due to the lack of a 3pm blackout in the US, American fans are able to watch more Premier League football than supporters over in the UK – and make the most of the opportunity

The explosion is also embraced at Mark’s beloved Arsenal, where some believe they have more fans in the US than in the UK. At the last count the club had four million social media followers on the other side of the Atlantic, a figure which had grown 14 per cent in a year. 

The US is the largest non-domestic market for ecommerce and revenue and there are 85 Arsenal fan clubs across 33 states, including 12 in California. Aside from the prospect of growing TV revenue this is, vitally, an engaged and often young audience, with money to spend. 

Many in McGarry’s had been to the UK to watch a match. Others told Mail Sport that they were planning a trip to do so. There has previously been talk of staging a round of Premier League fixtures abroad. A trip to soccer-mad San Francisco suggests that, at some point in the near future, such planning may not be necessary.