Kraft wants a team in England by 2020, 2 London games starting in 2013

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/06/28/kraft-wants-a-team-in-england/

Better not be the Jaguars

Seems to be ever gaining in momentum

While I'd welcome a London franchise I don't know whether I'd ever be fully able to support it, being a Raiders fan and already having an alligience

I also wonder whether the stadium would be able to be filled every week, considering many fans from all over the country would probably be unwilling to travel frequently. Unless they move all around the country?

A franchise in London would fail septacularly

Wembley would only be used for England/League Cup games in the NFL season I guess. Though the FA would probably take a dim view of it being a full time NFL stadia. Though given how desperate they are to pay off Wembley, money could talk. And it is only 10-12 games a season.

Moving it around probably doesn't really work.

I'm sure the FA wouldn't object at all

It would be slap bang in the middle of football season though, so they'd have to account for England qualifiers being in the mix some weekends

I dunno, there'd be some public backlash for the national stadium becoming home to an NFL team

^ however, they do need to find more uses for the Olympic stadium they've sunk so much money into?

The more I think about the viability of a UK franchise, the more and more I become convinced that there's only one way I can see it being successful:

Not relocation, but expansion - and not just one-team expansion into the UK; I think it would need a whole new division, all in Europe - say, one team in London, one in France somewhere, and two in Germany? It would ensure that three of the eight away games for any of the European franchises are within Europe, making the travel schedule easier, which in turns makes it slightly easier to attract FAs, etc.

I don't know how it would fit into the grander scheme of things, in terms of conference alignment - would probably have to be balanced out by another 4-team division in the other conference, so we'd be talking major expansion here - but that's the only way I can see a London team being successful in the long run

I think initially they'd probably have to split their home games with a base on the east coast.

Thomond wrote:A franchise in London would fail septacularly

Second

I still don't get why they wouldn't put the second European game in Germany. It's more central and the sport's more popular there.

It might come down to A) where they think ultimately the most revenue can be had and B) the flexibility on behalf of the government - for example, there's an all-Parliamentary group for the promotion of American football within Westminster; that could be a level of political & institutional support that other countries aren't willing to offer

Lowlandbrit wrote:I still don't get why they wouldn't put the second European game in Germany. It's more central and the sport's more popular there.

I think it might be part of the experiment to see whether a UK based franchise is viable, which I think most of us believe wouldn't work. Think GSC mentioned public backlash due to the national stadium being home to an NFL franchise, I also think there will be backlash from the American public due to losing a franchise to the UK. Haven't there been issues of some players not wanting to have the one game here so they're surely going to also be against a franchise actually being based here.

Ultimately, the players wouldn't have too many issues if the money was right.

Here's a question: seeing as the UK has considerably higher taxes than the US, would a potential UK franchise have to abide to the same salary cap? Hear me out:

- Higher UK taxes will mean that any UK franchise will have to offer larger contract than other teams, purely to balance out that higher tax rate
- The NFL will absolutely not put a franchise in the UK unless they have absolute belief that the franchise will be successful in the long term
- Unless the UK franchise has both A) one of the greatest GMs in the history of the game and B) an incredibly patient fanbase, it will be impossible for a UK franchise to build itself through the draft for long enough before attendance suffers and the NFL pull the plug on the project
- Therefore, any UK franchise will HAVE to be in position to sign at least some upper-level FAs - which will necessitate much larger offers because of the tax issue
- Because they will have to offer more than the other NFL teams to sign FAs, a free agent signing will take up a greater proportion of the UK franchise's salary cap compared to the other teams.
- The NFL will therefore be making it very, very hard for an NFL franchise to succeed in the UK if they have to abide to the same salary cap as US-based franchises
- Even if the other team owners get on board with that, the fanbases of the other teams will NOT be happy - because all they will see is the higher cap figure and get incensed about it before take into account the relative tax rates.

So yeah, that's gonna be a huge issue IMO.

I imagine the NFL would take that into account

Don't reckon Wembley would fill out every week if a team moved here full time. Plus travelling to the States and back every week is a chore. Won't happen and if it did I couldn't see it working tbh

If this did go ahead then the home and away games will surely be played in blocks, something like four away, four home, four away, four home although four away, eight home, four away maybe better logistically and with the schedule, bye weeks etc.

I could perhaps see Wembley holding two games with possibly the rest being in a smaller stadium(s).

I can't really see a franchise moving to London from the US. It would more likely to be a new franchise in the AFC East (5 teams) and see how it goes.

This could also be part of a NFL strategy to expand to 36 teams whether any London franchise succeeds of fails. (36 teams fits perfectly with 6 divisions of 6 teams).

^ the issue I would see with 6 divisions of 6 teams is how that would completely change the scheduling - you would have ten games inside the division, and then play one other division to get your sixteen, but would the NFL want to limit it so that if a team is not in your division, you would only see them once every six years in the regular season? Imagine the great Brady/Manning rivalry - how would that have looked if they had only played each other once every six years in the regular season?

Now, all that said.... even though pretty much nobody at all wants it, Goodell has always seemed pretty gun-ho about an 18-game season. I'm not sure that those extra two games would necessarily help in terms of overcoming a 6-division, 6-team alignment, but those two extra games would allow for some sort of expansion to potentially allow for a UK franchise, though I'm not sure how it would all work out, but it just came into my mind that expansion to include a UK franchise would have to come with an extension to an 18-game season - even if only to allow for, say, a second bye-week to account for teams travelling to & from Europe

Would be very interesting to be a fly on the wall when they discuss these things to see if they actually think them through or if one owner just says "we can make money" then everyone agrees. Biggest thing that we all say every time this gets brought up is that even as UK based NFL fans we probably wouldn't adopt the team as our number one team, as we all already support a team so how many will really pay for season tickets for a team they only have a passing interest in. If they move a team here attendance will depend on that teams fanbase in the UK as I think a lot less neutral fans will be turning up to the games.

^ agree, and for that reason, I reckon if it was just a case of a one-team expansion rather than a whole European division, I wouldn't be surprised if a UK team was added to a division whose teams have large fanbases over here - the NFC East springs immediately to mind

GurTPL wrote:^ agree, and for that reason, I reckon if it was just a case of a one-team expansion rather than a whole European division, I wouldn't be surprised if a UK team was added to a division whose teams have large fanbases over here - the NFC East springs immediately to mind

That could also mean younger fans introduced by parents could follow the UK franchise as a rival to their parents.

Derbyblue wrote:

GurTPL wrote:^ agree, and for that reason, I reckon if it was just a case of a one-team expansion rather than a whole European division, I wouldn't be surprised if a UK team was added to a division whose teams have large fanbases over here - the NFC East springs immediately to mind

That could also mean younger fans introduced by parents could follow the UK franchise as a rival to their parents.

Will a UK franchise get enough timeto create its own fanbase though?

mikeygnfl wrote:

Derbyblue wrote:

GurTPL wrote:^ agree, and for that reason, I reckon if it was just a case of a one-team expansion rather than a whole European division, I wouldn't be surprised if a UK team was added to a division whose teams have large fanbases over here - the NFC East springs immediately to mind

That could also mean younger fans introduced by parents could follow the UK franchise as a rival to their parents.

Will a UK franchise get enough timeto create its own fanbase though?

Inevitably no because the kids with parent fans would not sustain the required level of ticket sales if the parents still maintain their old loyalty.

I dunno if I totally agree with that.

Here in Arizona, the Cards took a long time to develop a fan base because most of the people in Phoenix supported other teams, in fact, most of the fans at the games supported the visiting team. Eventually a generation of Arizona kids grew up knowing nothing but the Cards. Took quite awhile, but the team survived many slow years of low attendance, in part because of the revenue sharing. Part of the problem was the team was poorly run and cut corners rather than trying to put a quality product on the field that people wanted to support and watch. Once they got a modern stadium with revenue streams, they sank the money into the team and suddenly became relevant.

I would hope that the owners of a UK team would be more on the ball about developing their product and fan base. There are significant hurdles to a UK franchise, but I'm sure the NFL has explored possible solutions or they wouldn't be floating the idea out there.

Whether people think it's a sound idea or foolhardy, it's looking more and more like we'll find out how their experiment will work.

Once again this issue comes up and once again I'm still unconvinced by the viability of it. For a start there's the point Mangler and Crazy Dave make above, would UK NFL fans choose to support a British club in large numbers over their original US franchise- I wouldn't.

Aside from that there's the issue of home stadium, would the FA or RFU want their stadiums being frequently used for NFL games and with a probable low turnout especially in its early years a UK franchise probably wouldn't be able to fill larger stadiums.

Also looking at the distance between the UK and US it'd be pretty nightmarish logistically with a UK team probably having to spend large amounts of time being based in the US itself. Add to that the differences in time zones, we might not mind it supporting NFL teams already but its not the best thing to have while trying to attract newcomers to the sport through a British team. I can't see large amounts of supporters staying up to all hours consistently for away games. Being the most isolated team and potential fan-base isn't going to help.

I also can't see US Football taking off to any major extent in this country (or at least enough for to support its own NFL franchise). The British peoples' attention is already taken up by a multitude of other sports- Premier league association football is titanic, cricket is also widely followed and we already have both codes of rugby being increasingly popular for punters who enjoy games with a bit more physicality plus others. A UK NFL team will struggle for attention in an already crowded market, American Football is a minority sport here and I don't expect any change to that soon.

I'm all for attempts to grow the game here but jumping into the deep end with a UK franchise is the wrong way to go about it imho. Learn to walk first before you run, the NFL should help re-establish a viable professional European developmental league and widen the game at grass roots level.

I get Mangler's point and if the NFL want to make this work, they can by simply spending the money until the team becomes established. I just don't see them spending that money.

The NBA and MLB each only have 1 non-US team and both are in Toronto, and the NHL whilst having 7 Canadian teams, was originated in Canada. All 3 leagues would probably find it easier to expand further outside US soil, but haven't chosen/been able to do so, so why does the NFL think it can do it with apparent ease?

I don't think it does. By allowing such pieces to flourish, it can push 3 agenda's at the same time.

1) Global publicity for the NFL - never a bad thing when done in a controlled manner. something says to me this is an attempt to push attention away from other less flattering stories of late.
2) Increased international exposure.
3) Keeping antsy teams in check. Teams like the Rams and Jags that might be thinking of relocation, may find the NFL saying something like 'you either move to LA or England. Which will it be?' if they suggest they are going to up sticks. Maybe they don't need the incentive, but it makes all the issues of an LA franchise look easier to swallow?

It may be a genuine piece and Kraft may well believe its possible, or at least is ambitious enough to think it might, but I just don't see it in a short time scale.

One thing though - as I think I said in another post, if things like Ramjet technology take off (pardon the pun), a 'short' trip from the west coast to London may not be so hard to imagine and would likely change the situation. But I would say that's at least 5 years away.

Steven Jackson would apparently love to play for a British team, thing is he may be a bit biased as he was giving that answer infront of a crowd of British NFL Fans and could be playing in London 3 years in a row.

"Jackson has been in London promoting the Rams clash with the New England Patriots at Wembley on October 28th, continuing the annual tradition of NFL teams playing regular season games in London that was first started in 2007.

The Rams have signed up to play a home game in London for each of the next three seasons and such has been the success of the sold-out Wembley matches, that Patriots owner Robert Kraft – considered one of the most influential and respected men in the sport – recently came out in favour of London getting a permanent team.

Critics of the plan have said many potential players would be against having to move overseas to be play, but Jackson told Eurosport he would not be one of them.

"I would love to (play for a British team), but then I might be a little different to some other players because travelling is one of my hobbies and I would embrace the opportunity to live in another country," the three-time Pro-Bowler said.

"If London was awarded a franchise would there be a backlash from the players? I don’t know, but I think with most players, what we love to do more than anything else is just to have an opportunity to play the game."

Jackson admitted he was surprised at how knowledgeable British fans of the game were and said that such knowledge would increase even further the more the league visited the UK.

"I believe that London could have a franchise, the fanbase is growing all the time and it has helped that we have brought these games to London," he said.

"It has been an education process and now the people are very knowledgeable about the game. I think it would grow even more if the fans had a team to root for and hopefully, with the Rams coming over here for the next three years, some new British fans will start rooting for us.

"I never thought I’d be able to play football in a different country, it is exciting to represent the sport and the ‘religion’ that is football and to show the fans in person the passion and the hard work that we put into the game."

Whether the British fans will be watching a winning team in the Rams over the next three years is another question.

The Rams have struggled in recent years and won only one match last season, but the appointment of experienced head coach Jeff Fisher, who brought the Tennessee Titans to the Super Bowl back in 1999, has lifted expectations in St Louis.

"We have brought in Coach Fisher who is an established coach in the NFL and he has put together a fine staff and also brought in some excellent new players through free agency and drafting," said Jackson who has run for over 1,000 yards for seven successive seasons despite his team's woes.

"Each and every year there is a team that surprises in the NFL. The talent level across the different teams is very even so it comes down how well the teams gel and the leadership that is provided.

"When week one comes along every team will start with a 0-0 record and every team has an equal chance of getting to the Super Bowl.""http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/news/pro-bowler-jackson-id-play-london-nfl-team-153125267.html

I guess once they were committed to the idea they won't want to be proven wrong so would probably give the franchise time to build up its fanbase in this country. Also I doubt that anywhere they could either relocate a franchise to or create a new one isn't going to have fans of other franchises there as if they've not had a team previously they'll have chosen someone to support, so no matter where they move a team it's going to need to time to build up it's home fans.