You may have read about the St Louis Rams NFL team playing one game per season at Wembley over the next three years.
Friend who follows the Rams (and Cards) and regularly travels to St Louis to watch them told me the conspiracy theory out there is that when the Rams stadium lease expires in 2014 they will move the franchise to London. Seems the Arsenal shareholder also has an involvement so game maybe played at Arsenal or Wembley.
Not really a fan of grid iron but an interesting development if true.
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Probably as much chance as
footballsoccer has over there.............Smart move, imo. its much easier to get into a sport when you have a specific team to follow and take an interest, rather than always watching as a neutral.
As an NFL fan I'll be taking more of an interest in the rams, knowing that I'm going to be watching them each of the next three years
side note - American football is the most tactically complex sport I've ever watched. Unbelievable level of detail goes into it. The coaches regularly live at the team facilities all week, working huge hours, as there's so much preparation and planning required. Players' intelligence is important too, as they have to learn and execute it. Much more so than football.
The list in Baseball would be even longer.
Baseball...Yank version of Rounders.
Basketball...Yank version of Netball.
Ooh l'm so cynical today
Can't wait for it to be back this year but it is only one match so it has the novelty factor, not sure how attendances would stand up for 8 regular home games in London.
Hope this happens.
Seems like a tie up with Arsenal could work well in this regard.
Though really I'm a Pat's fan
Anybody who's spent time in the US or Canada will appreciate the main sports they play. Personally am a big fan of baseball, ice hockey & NFL but can't stand basketball.
Don't like the idea though that a franchise could settle here. Reminds me of taking a 39th game in the Premiership to Asia. There would certainly be a market for it bit it just ain't right.
Really can't see it happening.
The rams will move to one of these with the other likely to be San Diego or Oakland.
Both stadiums will be ready by 2014.
Personally I'd rather watch the Cards. I'd love it if there was a modern baseball stadium in London. Hours of entertainment for half the price of footy, in a modern stadium like citi field or orioles park.
As much as I would love to see a regular game over here this doesn't seem like a good idea. The west coast teams already complain enough having to travel to the east coast to play games, I can't see many clubs up for traveling to a different continent to play a game.
As BBClaus said, the game takes a lot of planning and coaching, how would the traveling team do this in London or on the plane?
Could see it happening myself, ideal for the Olympic Stadium, also think an NBA team will arrive in the not too distant future. Global expansion seems to be the buzzword over there. Would love to see baseball over here, that will never happen, best US sport by a mile.
With baseball teams play a massive amount of games, often 4-5 a week, travelling would be excessive and in some cases simply impossible (imagine playing in London on a saturday night, and then having an afternoon game in LA on Monday?).
You also have to look at NFL having a far bigger fanbase in the UK than baseball. We've had NFL tv coverage since the 80s, whilst baseball has had very little mainstream coverage, not helped by the lateness of the games. Plus baseball would have to compete with Twenty20 cricket. T20 lasts 3 hours and has an average of 300+ runs scored and 10-20 sixes. Baseball last 3-5 hours and averages single digit scores and very few home runs by comparison. I can see very few people choosing to spend 5 hours at a baseball game for what will be a high price, when for less they could get far more bang for their buck at a T20 game.
Baseball has a problem when you try and sell it to a new audience. It looks like it's a game about batters, but it's not, it's really a game about pitchers, and they have by far the upper hand. I'm not sure a mainstream UK audience would take to a bat and ball sport where the best batsmen only get bat on ball around 30% of the time, and you can have whole innings without a single hit, let alone runs.
Don't get me wrong, I like a bit of baseball, I saw Roy Haddaway pitch a perfect game for the phillies in 2010 and it was amazing, but I just can't see it ever taking off over here, even if the crazy logistics of MLB could be overcome somehow.
As for NFL, much popular. I think they will fill out statdiums for 3 or 4 games over here. There're a lot of NFL fans in europe who can easily come over to london to watch the game. Especialy as europe once had their own American football league.
I find the sport trying to be as complicated as possible but yet its so bloody simple. One guy chucks the ball another guy catches it to try and get further up the pitch. Majority of the time that seems to be the play. Then every now and again they try something a bit more challenging which sometimes comes off but it isent really that much different to what they have been doing the whole time. I know they pratice these 'plays' but it doesent look like that much thinking goes into it. Just alot of marking (defending) and players trying to get away from their markers. It kind of reminds me of basketball with a bit more physicalness.
As for the time that it takes for all this to happen (not helped by the over the top celebrations by a defender who tackles an attacker. it would be a bit like a goalkeeper when he collects the ball from a cross start dancing around the 6 yard area and end on a usain bolt stance) you have lost all intrest, then they try and get you back into the game by shouting 2 MINIUTE WARNING!!! you soon get over the initial panic that the russians are attacking and remember your watching a game.
Its called football but you hardly ever use your feet. you are alowed to pass the ball but they often choose not too. whats the point of calling it a touchdown when you dont have to touchdown.
The americans are right there is no play acting, helped by the amount of padding on. It is a spectacle. Its like an over the top hollywood action film production would be. Yet, though i obviously have alot of problems with this sport, i can watch it. Though only for a short period of time before being bored or anoyed. I usually prefere 'highlight' shows to watching the full 3-4 hour game live. I do find the whole thing intriguing, the whole spectacle of it especially the super bowel. So with my curiosity i will probably give the super bowel a go. I'll get to half time thinking good god i'm only half way through and its 2 in the morning. put up with some shocking black eyed peas half time show, where i nearly have an seizure due to the millions of flashing lights. then eventualy fall asleep someway through the third quarter.
If a team tried to go with a throwing play every down then you'd find the defense simply set up for that, they'd blitz the quarterback every play and you wouldn't have much luck. The reason there are so many plays is to try and throw the defense off, will you throw or run, will it be a long or short pass, has the quarterback really handed the ball off to a runner, or is he going to spin the other way and throw? There is a huge amount of complexity involved.
Baseball and American football have this same thing where they take a very simple game and massively complicated it, then sprinkle liberally with a million stats. It baffles me why cricket has taken off over there, it satisfies all their basic sporting desires (simple idea complicated by a load of rules and subtle strategies/tactics, tons and tons of stats, plenty of short breaks for adverts)