NFL regular-season game to be played in London next season

Anytime an empire stretches itself too far and thin ... well, you know how that turns out.

 

Hasn't the Fridge been pimping this idea for years? I think he played for the Monarchs at one point in his career.

 

In Frankfurt, the Galaxy draw healthy crowds during that truncated NFL Europe season they play. I was surprised at the support when I went to a game there. Never caught a game in London or in Hamburg or Amsterdam, so I can't testify to fan support there.

 

Yeah... they'll be doing this in 32 years as currently consituted.

Only way to make sure it's fair is by giving the aggrieved home team a draft pick.

 

They do that ... and they can have my season tickets... ideally after I wipe my ass with them.

 

The idea behind it being London, I believe, relates to ease of travel for the teams and fans. You can get to the center of London my rail as well as air from most of western europe now, and Wembley has just been rebuilt and has a giant capacity.

 

You may be right about the Lions being successful before the Browns. But the Lions won't be successful for 20 years, so that'll be a LOOOOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG wait for Browns fans.

 

It's obviously for marketing reasons. The NFL sees Europe as a massive untapped market for merch sales / licensing and wants a piece of it.

And if every team is to eventually lose a home game, the Dolphins are getting over by being the first, because home-game revenues will only become that much bigger by 2017.

The Frankfurt WLAF franchise drew well because there was at the time a huge American military population (IIRC, somewhere around 900,000 when dependents are included) within 3 hours' drive. It's probably half that now.

 

I agree in a sense. London is OK, because the locals can get a prime-time game (and possibly live BBC coverage on a Sunday night) and east-coasters could get either a 1 pm (6 pm London) or 4 pm (9 pm) game. Right now, it's just about marketing and merchandising for the league.

But agreed on the Sunday/Monday deal. Don't mind the late-season Saturday games, either.

 

In a weird way, the Giants DO lose a home game.
There are so many transplanted NYers in So. Fla, they would widely outnumber Dolphins fans. Look at when the Jets play in Miami.
Miami has a good world (thanks Marino) following so they might actually have a homefield advantage at Wembley.

 

They should ship the Raiders and Lions over there next year ... and leave them over there and not allow them to return to the U.S.