Today’s Jets/Dolphins had a near sellout house, which set up the usual “NFL is moving a team to London” talk. But I have heard some sources claim the audience is mostly Americans living in London, with some tourists scattered around. For someone who has gone to the games, did the audience strike you as mostly homegrown crowds or mostly Americans? What is the atmosphere like?
I went last season and a lot of Americans were there for sure. Maybe 50%.
But I was impressed by how much the locals had adopted the Jags as their home team. There were also a lot of random Englanders wearing jerseys of the other 30 teams who just wanted some NFL.
I don’t think a team would have any trouble selling out 8 games there.
I remain skeptical about placing a franchise in London and not just because of the travel time and change in time zones. Or the challenges of asking American players to move to a country on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.
The fans come out in good numbers for the games, and that is great, but keep in mind its 1-2 times a year. I challenge a London based team to fill Wembley for 8 weeks if the product on the field sucks.
For now, I think the NFL likes the London games because it makes it look like an international product, and hey, if they can sell a million dollars worth of merchandise and millions more TV revenue in another country, all the better because all the NFL cares about is business.
But I cant see a team.
And that’s not even taking into account the foreign language and the food.
They play a game there every year, while every other NFL team only goes occasionally, and they draw better than they do in their too-small home market. Plus, the Jags’ owner, Shahid Khan, also owns Fulham FC - no idea how much cross-marketing they do, though.
None of that helps stop their suckage, though.
Still beats Green Bay.
Some baseball players have to go live in Canada, whether they want to or not.
The only difference for an NFL franchise in London is the length of the flight, and that wouldn’t really be much longer most of the time than it is for West Coast teams playing in the East already. A flight from the US East, where most of the teams are anyway, to London is only slightly longer than a flight to California. When the London Jaguars have a road game in the West, or vice versa, that won’t happen often and could be handled by scheduling a bye the week after - like teams that play in London get now.
Will the Jags get relegated too?
Los Angeles to New York is five hours. New York to London is eight. But yeah, if there’s a bye the following week I don’t see what the big deal is (though you can’t give everyone who plays in London a bye unless they are on a bye themselves in week 1).
The tax disparity would be a bigger hit for the players on a UK home team that plays eight games there, I think.
I went to a game back in 2008. It was about 50% Yank expats, 5% curious locals and 45%, “hey a sporting event, and we can drink beer at Wembley for once”. I tried getting a ticket in '09, and it was difficult because Tom Brady (who frankly was the only player who most there have heard of), was playing
RNATB: It’s more like 5.5 vs. 7 hours for those city pairs, and 7.5 vs. 11.5 westbound (per published airline schedules, which are padded, while teams fly charter everywhere). But yeah - it’s a handicap but not a massive one.
As for the tax situation, it’s not unknown at least in other leagues to have tax compensation clauses in player contracts, to keep take-home pay independent of location. That’s another reason the London Jaguars would have higher operating costs than most franchises, but perhaps could make up for it with marketing - or with stiffer revenue-sharing rules.
They can live in Monaco, like everyone else.
The NFL rotates it’s schedule, so the Jag would have to play the NFC west and AFC West every four years (although not the same year). Half of those would be road games. They also play a team from the AFC West every year, and Houston twice a year. So it’s not always an east coast to London flight.
And the Jags would have to take those flights eight times a year, vs. everyone else just having to take it at most once a year.
Or the league could put their Western road games in consecutive weeks, so they could just stay out there.
You can’t typically drink beer at Wembley? 
Beer cannot be consumed in sight of the pitch (IIRC) at Englsh football matches. It was one of the measures brought in to combat hooliganism.
Even if it were mostly expats, would that be a reason not to put a team there? Expats pretty much stay put, so if there are enough to fill the stadium twice a year, there’d be enough to fill the stadium eight times.
At the Emirates they once tried to stop me from bringing Pepsi to the seats.:rolleyes:
It is true for Premier League, Football League and Domestic cup competitions. I think CL, Europa League and Internationals have different rules.
Once a year. Special treat for Americans who can watch their favourite sport live, and a curiosity and a good time for others.
Full time team? Getting support for a club which plays an unknown sport in a city which is already saturated with different types of very popular sports teams.