burningmetal

Averaging 30,000 fans might have sounded good to that league, but it isn't close to the average attendance here. I know you guys get way more fans in the stands for soccer than you did for NFL Europe. The point isn't that no one cares over there, but it's that not enough of them do.

Also the majority of the players were NFL players sent over there, almost as a minor league type of deal. So the players weren't very high quality in general, and you weren't really seeing a true european league. That makes it harder for fans to identify with their team when they don't have a lot of their countrymen playing. So it didn't make any sense to keep throwing money down the drain for something that was basically just an NFL minor league. Now, if we include European teams in the real NFL you have to deal with the logistics of crossing the ocean and dealing with jet lag almost every week. Those teams would also have one less day of practice then everyone else because of the incredibly long flight. It would never work.

If I had a nickel for every time I heard that, the NFL would fine and suspend me.

Brandon428

and while I still do because they are cheaters,I don't mind them so much anymore since we pretty much rape them every time we play them. :P

Regarding the games in London,I'm all for it. I've been wanting to go to London for years and what would be more awesome than going to a soccer game and a Saints game while I was there! It would be as if a little piece of L.A. came with me.

Not to mention the games get great support there. Also if they go global maybe they'll have to have a global President/CEO and he'll get rid of Goodell. Hey I can dream!

Crusader

That attendance was high enough (and increasing) for a minor leauge, spending was the problem.
There is not a problem having american player but having some from europe helps. Compare it to european soccer where a English team might have 2 guys from england and then the rest from everywhere else. Its not the nationality that is important but what club you represent. An like i previously posted, it should only be a minor leauge, that is enough.

dsrdsrdsr

Speaking as an Englishman:

I don't think nationality matters. We could live with that. What does matter, and would make the whole thing a flop IMO, is that everyone who is interested in American Football in England is already a fan of someone else. A UK New Orleans fan wouldn't become a London fan overnight. Remember that in NFL Europe, the London team dropped out because there wasn't enough support.

The other problem is that we're much more parochial over here. I live 200 miles from London - that probably counts as local in the US, distances are so much greater. It's not local here. If I go to a 4pm kickoff at Wembley on Sunday, I won't be able to get home on the train on Sunday night. And driving, it takes a good two hours to get away from Wembley - the traffic arrangements are hopeless, London was not designed like American cities - and I'd be home well after midnight. Fair enough for a one-off, or I can stay overnight and take a day off work for a one-off, but not all season long.

Also, Wembley cost a fortune to build, way over budget - which means its owners (the Football Association, that's the soccer lot) charge an absolute bomb to rent it out. The annual London games cost about the same in pounds as your games do in dollars, which means translated cost is about half as much again as you pay. That's more than all but the most extreme Premier League soccer, for example.

Finally, a trend - the first London game sold out on the first day the tickets were offered. The second, took a week or two. Last year, there were tickets at face value close to the day of the game. Interest fades as the game gets less special. Certainly it takes a hit because there isn't a home team atmosphere, and lack of atmosphere takes a lot away from the game. But don't rely even on a second London game filling Wembley, let alone a full season's worth.

(I don't think the distance and time difference is an issue. New York to London is only 800 miles further than Los Angeles to Hawaii, and college teams cope with that. You'd just have to make an allowance for west coast teams travelling to London - put the bye week in the right place, something like that.)

Tobias-Reiper

Name 1 English team with only 2 English guys in it

And maybe for you a minor league is enough, but that is not what the NFL wants. The NFL wants NFL-type gate (as in NFL-type revenue). They don't want a stadium with 20-30,000 people who bought a ticket the week before... they want PSL owners, and luxury suite owners, people sitting on the bleachers paying $5.00 for bottled water, $10.00 for beer in a plastic cup, $7.50 for nachos, $20.00 for parking... oh! and TV contracts.

If a minor league with 20-30,000 people a game was enough for the NFL, there would still be an NFL Europe, but obviously, since it no longer is, it wasn't enough.

'Cause the simple man pays the thrills, the bills and the pills that kill