On a recent Saturday morning at a building in South Street Seaport in Lower Manhattan, Jon Miller, president of programming at NBC Sports and NBCSN — a division of Comcast Corp.’s CMCSA, -1.79% NBCUniversal — was admiring the enthusiasm on display from hundreds of soccer fans attending a UK Premier League Fan Festival event.

“This is just stupendous,” he said. “You can see how the game touches fans.”

Ahead of the screening of their game against Liverpool, a raucous group of American and British expat supporters of reigning champions Chelsea were proving Miller’s point.

To the tune of “Lord of the Dance,” the Chelsea fans chanted: “Carefree wherever you may be/ We are the famous CFC. And we don’t give a f--k/ Wherever you may be/ ‘Cause we are the famous CFC.”

The day-long festival organized by NBC Sports Network (NBCSN) also drew fans of Manchester United, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. Arsenal and Manchester City, two British soccer clubs who also have huge U.S. fanbases, were playing the next day.

The live telecast featured NBC’s Premier League host Rebecca Lowe and analysts Robbie Mustoe and Robbie Earle broadcasting from the event, a far cry from their usual studio location in Stamford, Connecticut. Another analyst, Kyle Martino, was absent since he is on sabbatical and running to be president of U.S. Soccer Federation in the wake of the U.S.’s failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup Finals.

It wasn’t only the fans who were having fun at the festival. “You can see how the Premier League is a huge source of pride for us with the number of big NBC execs here in the building which would not normally happen if you said you’re throwing a corporate party,” said Dan Palla, director, consumer engagement marketing at NBC Sports.

But British soccer is big business in the U.S. American soccer stars such as Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard have plied their trade in the Premier League, which has grown into a global phenomenon since its inception in 1992. Leading clubs play preseason-friendly games in the U.S. and have lucrative merchandising arms.

According to a study published at the start of the year by sports economists at the University of Tübingen in Germany, five of the top ten most popular soccer clubs among American fans are British. Premier League Executive Chairman Richard Scudamore is fond of citing the statistic that 26,000 Americans travel to the U.K. each week to watch a game in person.

NBC is critical to the recent growth in popularity. NBC Sports started broadcasting the Premier League in 2013 and renewed the rights in 2015 with a six-season contract reportedly worth a billion dollars.

“NBC Sports definitely raised the bar in terms of their world class soccer coverage — sometimes it’s better than in the U.K.,” says Christopher Harris, Florida-based editor and publisher of the World Soccer Talk website. “It’s been a huge success from an advertising and an awareness view but their biggest challenge is now how to monetize it and grow.”

Previously Premier League games had been broadcast on the Fox Soccer Channel and Disney-owned DIS, -3.08% ESPN. However, NBC committed to showing every Premier League match involving the 20 teams in the division on NBCSN and affiliated networks, including one weekly game on NBC.

“It’s incredible that now you can watch any game in the Premier League on your phone or computer as well as on TV,” said Andrés Cantor, commentator for NBC Deportes and Telemundo. “A decade ago you would have to hope that someone was showing the game or you would go to a pub and pray it didn’t rain because the satellite wouldn’t pick up the signal!”

“We knew that it [the Premier League] had been under-appreciated and under-marketed in its prior relationships with Fox and ESPN,” said Jon Miller. “Not because they didn’t appreciate the sport but they had so much else and it really wasn’t a priority. Our commitment to the Premier League was that we were going to make it a priority in this country and put it on a level with other major sports. We’ve done that and then some.”

Perhaps so. But with its soccer coverage NBC Sports finds itself with the same sudden rating challenges that have affected football and basketball. Viewership per window of the Premier League rose on NBC networks for three consecutive years, only to slump in the 2016-17 season to an average of 420,000 viewers, down 18% from the previous season.

The rise in cord-cutting and illegal streaming as well as the 2016 Rio Olympics and the number of mouth-watering ties being scheduled at early morning times were all factors contributing to the viewing slump.

NBC is trying to reverse the ratings decline through widening the product’s reach by featuring more special guests and eye-catching events such as the Fan Festival. Soccer celebrities including former Chelsea players Ashley Cole and Michael Essien and referee Mark Clattenberg attended and fans posed for selfies with the Premier League trophy.

Former Chelsea star Ashley Cole posing with a young Tottenham fan

“An event like this is giving thanks to amazing Premier League fans, like the ones in the West Coast who wake up at 4 A.M. to watch it, but in this room right now we have 250 people that have not identified themselves with a team,” said NBC’s Dan Palla. “This helps them choose a team and an allegiance.”

Miller was quick to point out NBC Sports are not evangelists on behalf of the “beautiful game.” Instead they are investing in a compelling narrative that has in recent years included supreme underdogs Leicester City winning the title and a soccer showdown between the archrival coaches of two Manchester clubs, Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho.

“We don’t want to be the network of soccer,” Miller said. “We want to be the network of the Premier League. There’s a big difference. We feel the Premier League stands above every other soccer league out there including the domestic league here.”

Indeed last week’s much-hyped derby between Mourinho’s Manchester United and Guardiola’s Manchester City was watched by 1.4 million viewers (combining audiences for NBCSN and Telemundo). That was 18% more than viewership for the domestic Major League Soccer cup final held on the same day.

A taxi promoting NBC Sports' Premier League coverage

The upcoming busy holiday schedule of soccer matches (40 games being broadcast over 14 days) will give a greater idea whether NBC Sports is able to get Premier League ratings inching upwards again. Yet unlike previous years, NBCSN and affiliated networks will not be showing all the games on TV.

To monetize their investment, NBC Sports have introduced a subscription service called “Premier League Pass” which shows games not broadcast on TV. Priced at $50 for the August-May season — although now discounted over the holidays — the pass gives access to 130 Premier League matches over the duration of the season via their NBC Sports Gold streaming service.

Some supporters bitterly oppose the service with matters not helped by serious outages on September which saw ties having to be moved to the NBC Sports App and the network apologizing to supporters. Just yesterday Arsenal fans expressed unhappiness on social media that their game versus West Ham United had been moved at the eleventh hour to NBC Gold.

“To the eyes of me and other soccer fans, it’s NBC’s only serious mistake,” said Christopher Harris. “It’s an in-between solution that doesn’t satisfy cord cutters, because the NBC Sports Gold subscription doesn’t feature games shown on TV, and cable subscribers who now have to pay extra to watch all the games.” NBC Sports executives say they are satisfied with the service but will review “Premier League Pass” at the end of the season.

Meantime, NBC Sports plans to throw more live experiences to raise awareness for its Premier League product. “It’s very important that we do more events like this Stateside where we bring the fandom, the chaos, the chemistry, the noise and the chants,” said Dan Palla. “That’s how we draw new people in — by bringing the show on the road.”

“We think we’ve barely scratched the surface,” he added. “Our goal is to get more people to watch and make it a morning ritual.”