NFL Team in London

[miktoxic]

Sure, I enjoyed the World Cup. When guys start commenting that so-and-sos midfielder had a shitty game, I said to myself WTF?

 

my friend turned to me last week and said something about a player in the world cup asking "you know, the greatest player in the world who played for blah blah?" and i only knew one name and said renaldo. he then scolded me and said "no! c'mon, you should know this!"

 

i turned to him and said "shut the fuck up."

 

end of conversation.

[The Gipper]

Not quite! His job is to manage and maintain the NFL. Under his reign, the NFL has become even more of a haven for thugs and bad characters while the fans are methodically taken advantage of. Even the most greedy business owners should see that is a recipe for disaster.

I don't think greedy owners see anything but dollar signs in their eyes. They will do just about anything for extra cash.

Though Art Modell may have been the worst of the bunch but they all would probably sell their grandmothers for a farthing.

[gftChris]

As requested by Gipper, my two-penneth. And yes, this is the abridged version.

 

First off, let me split this in to two parts - the market, and the feasibility.

 

There is a huge amount of support for the NFL in the UK. The wembley games sell out every year at hugeh prices (about $150 for basic tickets) in a 90000 seat stadium. I believe if you have 8 games a season there you could average out around 85k per game, no problems. It's more of a 'middle-class' sport over here, believe it or not - probably because it's not on our equivalent of basic cable, you have to be able to afford the Sky channels on which to watch it, outside of the superbowl. But that means that the fans have the affluence to sustain a franchises merchandising purchases in the long run. You'd probably also attract other fans from Europe, if it were the only team.

 

However, I personally wouldn't want to see it happen here. For me, the NFL is a quintessentially american thing - as much as we do pomp and circumstance, and displays of regal elegance, and any attempt to replicate that in America just comes off terribly twee; any attempt over here to celebrate the start of a game, and any scoring etc with a huge pyrotechnic display, and have cheerleaders, tailgating etc seems just very forced. It would be something completely different (not necessarily a bad thing).

 

 

As for the feasibility, this is where it falls down - for a large number of reasons. Practically - asking players to fly back and forth for 8 games a season, from London to New York is bad enough, but to Cali and Seattle is terrible.

-Then you have the prospect of asking players to either move their family to London permanently - and all the visa issues that are involved, of course - but then, only maybe for a year, or in the case of some players only for a few weeks/months.

-Draft visits - are you expecting everyone to be able fly over to london for an evaluation? I'm sure there are plenty of players, maybe they've grown up in Alabama, went to HS in Alabama, went to college in alabama and have never left the country.

Apparently only 30% of americans have a passport - you've got to make sure that all your players you're scouting have a passport. Or maybe you have a base in America for the winter/spring season to do your evaluation. But then you risk alienating your fan base at home, who see you as just another franchise that happens to play 8 games a year in London.

-Then, you have the tax issue. Income tax for top end earner in Ohio is what, 5%? According to a few places I found, at least. Top end earners in the UK pay 45% tax - a huge penalty for a team based here. Side note - if you're looking at expanding around europe, the tax rate in France is a ridiculous 75%.

 

 

Lastly, and this is a biggy, you have the EU. In particular, its freedom of movement laws. The concept of a player basically being told where to play (his rights are held by a team whether he signs with them or not after drafting) is going to be laughed at by any human rights lawyer in europe. The CBA might come under scrutiny, but probably that would just about be ok.

 

 

I would be much, much happier seeing a European league. Unfortunately I missed the developmental league we had here, but that basically would feel like a 'minor league' system. If you want to get people truly interested, you'd have to have at least some semblence of parity. Maybe make it like the CFL, just a separate entity. Then you have the possibility of it some day being better than the NFL - eventually, if it became as popular as soccer for example, or even just cricket or rugby (much more realistic), and people were playing it as children, there's no reason why Americans would be inherently better, just because of nationality, it's more a cultural thing.

 

Does the NFL want to spread the game, or just make more money for itself? Is there a world-wide gridiron football governing body that has any kind of jurisdiction over the NFL? Probably not.

[The Gipper]

To your last point couple of points....the NFL wants to spread the game in order to make more money for itself.

 

Also, there is an international governing body of Football, and there is even a "World Cup"....but it gets absolutely NO attention here. The players come from basically the D-II or D-III level.

 

(but FYI the coach of the international team is/was a former coach of the KC Chiefs, Texas Longhorns, and Illinois Illini. And he comes from the town where my carcass is parked at this moment) That level of competition would not reach CFL level or even the former NFL Europa League.

 

I suspect that if there were a Europa League, pretty much owned and run by Europeans and played in Europe, that perhaps in the not too distant future it could reach the level of the CFL. (hell, they may want to consider playing by CFL rules even). In other words it would not be like the NFL Europa, it wouldn't even ask for the blessings or the NFL....the CFL really doesn't....though they do engage in some cooperation.

There could actually be enough decent players to staff such a league. Most could be Americans, but like the CFL, they could institute a rule that a certain percentage would have to be European citizens.

Here is the CFL rule....it looks like 50% have to be Canadian:

http://www.cfl.ca/page/non_import_player_rules