Super Bowl in London By 2014?

[Gothamite]

Let's face it - the average English disposable income is worth more to the NFL than that of the average Mexican. No wonder they're pushing that harder.

[dwertman]

I was listening to NFL Radio on Sirius the other day,and a caller was complaining about a London Super Bowl,with the usual "its our game,why are we giving that income to England,think about how much money an American city will lose".And the guy went on and said "Lets give them an expansion team,and if the team is doing well in a few years,then give them a SB."

Personally I think a London Super Bowl is an ok idea,id watch it no matter where its played.But that brings me tp my question...Do you guys think an NFL team would work in London?

[Gothamite]

No.

Not only are travel times (and expenses) prohibitive, but the time difference would wreak havoc with the players.

[Saintsfan]

I was listening to NFL Radio on Sirius the other day,and a caller was complaining about a London Super Bowl,with the usual "its our game,why are we giving that income to England,think about how much money an American city will lose".And the guy went on and said "Lets give them an expansion team,and if the team is doing well in a few years,then give them a SB."

Personally I think a London Super Bowl is an ok idea,id watch it no matter where its played.But that brings me tp my question...Do you guys think an NFL team would work in London?

One of my fears would be that the big crowds for the NFL games have largely because its a once a year novelty. I am not convinced that you would get even 40,000, say, regularly to US Football games in the UK.

[Brian in Boston]

I am not convinced that you would get even 40,000, say, regularly to US Football games in the UK.

It would largely depend upon how many American expatriates such a franchise could count on to purchase tickets and show up on a regular basis. Despite all of the NFL's talk about growing the game's foreign-born audience overseas, the target market - at least initially - for a London-based NFL franchise would have to include a significant percentage of American expats in order for said team to know that they were going to draw decent crowds. That said, the built-in problem with attempting to appeal to the expats is whether or not the draw of seeing live NFL football presented by a new, London-based franchise would trump the rooting interest that such Americans have for their teams back home.

[Gothamite]

I was listening to NFL Radio on Sirius the other day,and a caller was complaining about a London Super Bowl,with the usual "its our game,why are we giving that income to England,think about how much money an American city will lose".And the guy went on and said "Lets give them an expansion team,and if the team is doing well in a few years,then give them a SB."

Personally I think a London Super Bowl is an ok idea,id watch it no matter where its played.But that brings me tp my question...Do you guys think an NFL team would work in London?

One of my fears would be that the big crowds for the NFL games have largely because its a once a year novelty. I am not convinced that you would get even 40,000, say, regularly to US Football games in the UK.

Agreed.

A large part of the people who went to Wembley did so on the corporate pound. I'm not sure that the crowds they've seen so far are sustainable.

[Rhys]

I've been to both the regular season games in Wembley (heading to the third one in October as well). I think the problem that UK American football fans had with the World League of American Football and NFL Europe was it wasn't the NFL. American football is getting more popular over here without a doubt, I'm sure the BBC didn't do terrible ratings when they aired the Super Bowl in February.

But with these one-off games a year, you're drawing in fans like myself who live two and a half hours away from Wembley on a train who will make a weekend out of it. The Wembley games are the one think I've kept some money for this year, so in an economy that's in the state it's in, I expect people might see tickets to a game as expendable. You probably wouldn't be able to find 30,000 NFL fans in London who would be willing to support a new franchise when there's so much other top level sport (football/soccer, rugby union etc.) in the city at any one weekend. A Super Bowl in London could work, but I don't think a team could.

I live in Bridgend, which is 20-30 minutes away from Cardiff and as much as I'd adore to see my nearest city get a game, I don't think it will. The Millennium Stadium is a magnificent place to watch sport, but I think Cardiff have applied for UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup/Europa League finals in the past but didn't get them due to hotel rooms (there weren't enough). I'm also not entirely sure whether they could fit an NFL field inside the stadium, as the bottom of the lower tier is quite close to the pitch in football/soccer and rugby matches. I can just see someone running into the end zone to catch a TD pass and tumble right over the concrete barrier into the stands (YouTube moment, but probably not a great advert for the game).

If that post doesn't make a lot of sense, I apologise, I just wanted to add my take on things, that's all.

[Saintsfan]

I was listening to NFL Radio on Sirius the other day,and a caller was complaining about a London Super Bowl,with the usual "its our game,why are we giving that income to England,think about how much money an American city will lose".And the guy went on and said "Lets give them an expansion team,and if the team is doing well in a few years,then give them a SB."

Personally I think a London Super Bowl is an ok idea,id watch it no matter where its played.But that brings me tp my question...Do you guys think an NFL team would work in London?

One of my fears would be that the big crowds for the NFL games have largely because its a once a year novelty. I am not convinced that you would get even 40,000, say, regularly to US Football games in the UK.

Agreed.

A large part of the people who went to Wembley did so on the corporate pound. I'm not sure that the crowds they've seen so far are sustainable.

Sure there were some corporate tickets for the NFL Wembley games, but there were tons of guys like Rhys as well ponying up there money. And I think that Rhys has put the problem that an NFL franchise in London faces across well. Loads of people might be prepared to come to the occasional game. But it would be hard for a London NFL franchise to draw large crowds to Wembley say regularly. I am not convinced that Wembley is a viable venue for 8 weekends across the autumn/winter in the UK. Too many England soccer internationals and such contractual obligations and too many other potential opportunities lost.

If you were looking at finding a use for the Olympic 2012 stadium then you MIGHT be on to something, but again I doubt it. Even without the problems with the mass transit and putting 8 (maybe 9 if Commisioner Goodell get his way) other NFL at a disadvantage by forcing them across the Atlantic and back again its tough to see how the idea could work personally.

[Rhys]

Trying to get out of Wembley was an absolute nightmare. A friend of mine who is in college/university in Reading let us stay at his place for the weekend last year. I think the game finished at 9:30 and we didn't get back into Reading until 11:30. It took us less than an hour to get there via train and tube. They bottlenecked the fans leaving the stadium onto Wembley Way and they could only let so many people in the Underground station at a time. 90,000+ people leaving Wembley all at once was just a bad idea and something I'm not looking forward to in this year's game. I'm shocked when they re-designed the stadium and the tube station they didn't take into account the number of people wishing to leave at once.

Gonna sound like a total homer, but the Millennium Stadium has the largest train station in Cardiff right next to it and the way they organise the crowds into the station was much more efficient and people go away from events there very quickly. The Millennium also is in the middle of a city, so there are plenty of bars and nightclubs that will absorb the fans, where as no disrespect to Wembley, it's in the middle of an industrial estate. Fans will soon get sick of waiting for hours to get out of the stadium after 8 home games or so a year.

I almost forgot about England internationals as well, cheers Saintsfan. The England national team blamed their failure to qualify for Euro 2008 on the pitch after the Giants/Dolphins game. With the Millennium Stadium, Wales have a series of home rugby union games around late October-early November against some of the big names in rugby (Australia, New Zealand etc.) usually one weekend after another, so for them to fit in a game there would be extremely difficult. That would probably eliminate Murrayfield (Scotland's rugby home as they tend to do the same) leaving you with football stadia, which will entirely depend on whether the home team is playing there one week after next and the dimensions of the field being able to fit there.

My argument is made on a second regular season game, but as far as a Super Bowl goes, outside of Mexico and Canada, the UK is (along with Germany I expect) the next place the NFL can conquer. Brits have a fascination with the US and it's culture, so I'm sure some Brits would be curious and might come along, and you'd get the fans of the sport who can afford tickets to come as well. It could work, but I'm sure there are far more deserving sites and cities in the US who deserve a game before the NFL can think of playing a Super Bowl in London.

(Essay over)