1. #1
    bigboydan
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    Bye, Bye Nfl Europe

    I'm kind of surprised that NFL Europe had it 16 years actually. It just didn't have that aura over there like real football did does over here in the states. Face facts... Soccer or nothing everywhere else but in the USA.


    N.F.L. Pulls the Plug on League in Europe

    By RICHARD SANDOMIR
    Published: June 30, 2007

    National Football League officials bet in the early 1990s that the world — or at least North America and Europe — would embrace a brand of football that was of lesser quality than the one the league’s 32 teams play in the United States.

    But N.F.L. Europa, born 16 years ago as the World League of American Football, lost money, ran through television partners, narrowed its trans-Atlantic focus largely to Germany and finally was shuttered yesterday. The N.F.L.’s strategy will shift to playing some of its own regular-season games overseas.

    “If we can present two or three games a year, and fans are engaged in that experience, we will grow exponentially overseas,” Mark Waller, the senior vice president of NFL International, said by telephone from Frankfurt.

    Despite its domestic power, the N.F.L. has struggled to export its game.

    The National Basketball Association has deep roots in Europe and Asia. More than half the traffic to its nba.com Web site emanates from outside the United States, and more than one billion viewers watch league programs on 51 Chinese stations. Last season, 83 foreign players were on N.B.A. rosters, including stars like Yao Ming (China), Tony Parker (France) and Manu Ginóbili (Argentina). The sixth player chosen in the league’s annual draft Wednesday was the Chinese 7-footer Yi Jianlian.

    Major League Baseball had a record 246 foreign-born players on opening day rosters, including 98 from the Dominican Republic and 13 from Japan, including Daisuke Matsuzaka, whom the Boston Red Sox signed to a $52 million deal after spending $51.1 million for the right to negotiate with him.

    The Yankees, whose pitching ace is the Taiwanese right-hander Chien-Ming Wang, recently entered into a working agreement with the Chinese Baseball Association and subsequently signed two Chinese players.

    And last year’s first World Baseball Classic — a 16-team tournament that was played in San Diego, Phoenix, Tokyo, San Juan, P.R., Anaheim, Calif., and Orlando, Fla. — was more successful than initially expected. It will return in 2009.

    “No question, the N.B.A. is the most successful American sports league overseas, because basketball, unlike football, is played throughout the world,” said Neal Pilson, a sports industry consultant.

    Waller said that N.F.L-style football was difficult to translate to foreign fans because of its complexity and because audiences knew they were not seeing the best talent. “In soccer, there’s global recognition that the English Premier League and Champions League generate the most appeal,” he said. “In our sport, the regular season, the playoffs and Super Bowl are as good as it gets.”

    But N.F.L. Europa had none of that pizzazz, just six teams at the end (five in Germany and one in Amsterdam) and the World Bowl. And it required an overall investment of $400 million to $500 million, Waller said.

    N.F.L. teams each sent a few players a year for seasoning abroad — and stars like Kurt Warner, Jake Delhomme, Brad Johnson, Dante Hall and Adam Vinatieri played there — but Super Bowl-quality talent was not standard issue.

    “It had some useful purpose in developing players,” John Mara, the co-owner of the Giants, said in an interview from Turnberry, Scotland. “And at least we were able to find out if there was interest in our product. And there was some.”

    In the beginning, as the World League of American Football, the league had 10 teams — six in the United States, three in Europe and one in Canada. The structure was maintained for two seasons, after which operations were suspended for two years. A six-team, all-Europe version emerged in 1995 and was rechristened N.F.L. Europe. The name was changed again, to N.F.L. Europa, in 2006.

    By 2005, the London Monarchs, Barcelona Dragons and Scottish Claymores were gone from the league, which consolidated around its most ardent fan base in Germany. For the 2007 season, average attendance reached a high of 20,024; the league’s final game, World Bowl XV on June 23, drew 48,125 fans.

    Waller said there was hope for years that the European media market would help bankroll N.F.L. Europa with rights payments. But in the end, German networks carried none of the league’s games live; the World Bowl was shown on tape a day later.

    Waller said league approval to play two regular-season N.F.L. games a year overseas will better attract fan and news media interest. The Giants will play the Miami Dolphins in October at Wembley Stadium in London. “All the tickets we’ve put on sale so far for the Wembley game have been sold out,” Waller said.

  2. #2
    Checkerboard
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    I wonder if it would've done better if they'd started it as NFLG (National Football League of Germany). By limiting it to the one country from the start, they might have set a more solid anchor and possibly grown better from there. I don't know if the original market research that was done would have revealed that as a possible approach.

  3. #3
    ShamsWoof10
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    I still believe within 50 years all major sports will be GLOBAL.. The NFL will likely become global along with the NBA and MLB.. As a matter of fact most industries even will be global... It seems like it's being engineered that way.... We'll see though

  4. #4
    Dark Horse
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    If you ask me Goodell is trying too hard to be Stern. The idea of two overseas NFL games is terrible. That will really handicap those teams. Plus hardly anybody cares in Europe.

  5. #5
    ShamsWoof10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dark Horse View Post
    If you ask me Goodell is trying too hard to be Stern. The idea of two overseas NFL games is terrible. That will really handicap those teams. Plus hardly anybody cares in Europe.
    I'm not so sure about that... I admit I do not know for sure but I played SEMI-PRO football (Michigan T-Wolves) a few years back and one of our receivers was from the UK... He mentioned that it was more popular in Germany, UK, and some of Europe or what he said actually was a lot more then people think... He says there are MANY leagues in the UK and Germany but again I can not confirm this it is just what he told me.... I am guessing he meant SEMI-PRO leagues since he mentioned that he played for some of them...

    OT: It was unusual for me to hear a black guy with a British accent... It was cool...

    Also do keep this in mind... If Europeans start making up some of the NFL roster that can have a big effect.. ie. Yao Ming one Chineese national moved quite a few people.... There were a few European nationals that played on NFL Europe teams.. It's a start... I may be wrong though we'll see....
    Last edited by ShamsWoof10; 06-30-07 at 05:11 PM.

  6. #6
    tacomax
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShamsWoof10 View Post
    I still believe within 50 years all major sports will be GLOBAL.. The NFL will likely become global along with the NBA and MLB.. As a matter of fact most industries even will be global... It seems like it's being engineered that way.... We'll see though
    Not a chance in the world. If NFL is going to become global then why has NFL Europe had the plug pulled?

    It's a fact that American Sports are called that for a reason. Because they're popular largely with Americans. American football isn't that strictly followed by anyone else in the world because no-one else plays it to any extent. Baseball does have a reasonable following but this is largely in countries which play baseball and export their players to MLB such as Japan, Panama, Dom Rep, Venezuela, Puerto Rico etc. Basketball has little major following in the world outside the Philippines. And the less said about NHL the better.

    Soccer and cricket are by far the most popular sports in the world in terms of global reach. The day when India choose NFL over cricket is the day when they choose Big Macs over curry. That isn't going to happen in the next 50 years.

  7. #7
    tacomax
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShamsWoof10 View Post
    He mentioned that it was more popular in Germany, UK, and some of Europe or what he said actually was a lot more then people think... He says there are MANY leagues in the UK and Germany but again I can not confirm this it is just what he told me.... I am guessing he meant SEMI-PRO leagues since he mentioned that he played for some of them...
    It is popular to the extent that some people like to watch it and some people like to play it. During the NFL season, one of the terrestrial channels (albeit the smallest one) shows a couple of games a week. But it pales into insignificance with the people who watch and play soccer.

  8. #8
    ShamsWoof10
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    You may be right Taco and as I said I took it from him... Although you must admit the timing is odd... NFL Europe hasn't done sh*t from the start but they pull the plug the SAME YEAR out of the 16 that they are going to play regular season games abroad... Now the NFL owners I would think are brighter then us and not only are they planning on playing "A" regular season game abroad but they are planning on playing at least a few games abroad each year and that is to start with... Now do you think these guys know that football is a dead issue there and are just going to do it anyway..? I doubt it... I look at this like I look at a game/market... If the smart/big money is on the "opposite" side of the public then yoiu can bet your as* the smart money will win most of the time....

  9. #9
    tacomax
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShamsWoof10 View Post
    NFL Europe hasn't done sh*t from the start but they pull the plug the SAME YEAR out of the 16 that they are going to play regular season games abroad... Now the NFL owners I would think are brighter then us and not only are they planning on playing "A" regular season game abroad but they are planning on playing at least a few games abroad each year and that is to start with
    Think about it - it's not too hard to work out, from a European perspective anyway. NFL Europe isn't NFL. People who want to watch the best of NFL will watch the real NFL. Not the European NFL which is full of players who can't make the real NFL. If players in European NFL were any good, they'd be playing in NFL. People in Europe will pack the stadiums for 1 or 2 NFL matches a season but not to watch sub-standard games.

    Think of it another way. How many time have you watched the European NFL? Or Japanese baseball?

  10. #10
    betplom
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    Quote Originally Posted by ShamsWoof10 View Post

    OT: It was unusual for me to hear a black guy with a British accent... It was cool...
    My favourite are the Chinese from the Carribean with the Jamaican accents. Maybe not "Cool" but definitely interesting.

    I believe the NFL is a North American thing. Why isn't soccer more popular here?

  11. #11
    ShamsWoof10
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    Quote Originally Posted by tacomax View Post
    Think about it - it's not too hard to work out, from a European perspective anyway. NFL Europe isn't NFL. People who want to watch the best of NFL will watch the real NFL. Not the European NFL which is full of players who can't make the real NFL. If players in European NFL were any good, they'd be playing in NFL. People in Europe will pack the stadiums for 1 or 2 NFL matches a season but not to watch sub-standard games.

    Think of it another way. How many time have you watched the European NFL? Or Japanese baseball?
    I watched NFL Europe quite often actually but I don't watch American baseball much... It's like watching paint dry and when I have action I watch it on CBSSPORTSLINE which is sweet...

    I think they have had this in mind for a long time now and prepared the Europeans via NFL Europe for the expansion of the NFL and I am not saying it will be tomorrow but it's not too far off... You are not giving the NFL owners any credit and I think you think they are just stupid and are going to try something that is an obvious failure... I don't think so taco these guys are not just any shmoes... Most of them OWN banks so they have deep pockets.. It probably will take 25-50 years to get this all done but sh*t it took that long to get it done here....

    These guys are in the business to make money so if you think it is an obvious failure then why are they going forward with it ESPECIALLY since NFL Europe didn't work out...?

  12. #12
    ShamsWoof10
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    Quote Originally Posted by betplom View Post
    My favourite are the Chinese from the Carribean with the Jamaican accents. Maybe not "Cool" but definitely interesting.

    I believe the NFL is a North American thing. Why isn't soccer more popular here?
    hahaha that would be f*uckin' hilarious... I don't think I would stop laughing...

    Soccer is gaining big time here in the States... You just watch when the young people that have recently provided the boom get older and in positions of power you'll see a major change in balance with sports in the US... Soccer and Football globally will eventually balance out...

    MAJOR CHANGES ARE GRADUAL AND DO NOT HAPPEN OVER NIGHT!!! The fact that the public's opinion is sooooo on side and they are still going ahead with it tells you it's a LOCK!!!

    This reminds of when I see a losing pitcher/team on the road FAVORED against a team/pitcher with a better record who is playing at home... Before the game starts everyone is on the home dog at the rec. books and major money at the professional books is coming in on the road favorite who record wise is not as good... Most of the time the smart money is right
    Last edited by ShamsWoof10; 07-01-07 at 01:49 PM.

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