I don't understand why it has to be this I love football so I can't possibly like NFL attitude. I love football. I love NFL. I love cricket. It's OK.
Absolutely. They are all different and need to be appreciated for what they are. I can understand people preferring one over another, but not the idea that you can’t like one because you like a different one.
Every so often this pops up in our local paper. The sports writers were apoplectic when the World Cup was here, constantly having to deride football in comparison to their favorite sport.
The new ground at White Hart Lane has a 10 year agreement with the NFL. As with the Twickenham short term agreement, in the first season there is only one game being played but after this it will increase and at WHL it will almost certainly grow to having the majority of the NFL games played in London. Khan has some sort of agreement with the NFL and Wembley so that the Jaguars have at least one game as the 'Home' side every season.
It's likely that with the investment made by the NFL with Spurs that Khan doesn't have the same agreement and is therefore looking to side step the NFL in an attempt to protect the Jaguars who have undoubtedly benefited from the Wembley experience.
Best case scenario for Khan is that he can get an extension to the agreement and continues to hold at least one Jaguars game a season at Wembley and if you think that this isn't possible then you haven't been paying attention over the last 10 years. Plus of course there is all the revenue a major international stadium can bring. My only doubt is that if Khan believes he can increase that number of Jaguar home games, or set up a UK franchise out of Wembley, then I fear he is massively overestimating the likelihood of UK NFL fans going three, or four times to WHL and then three, four, or eight times to Wembley in a season.
Worst case scenario he has added to his property portfolio that has a ready made revenue stream and he will charge the FA an absolute fortune to rent it back game by game and Fulham have a home to go to while Craven Cottage is being re-developed.
From an NFL perspective, they know that there is a national hunger for the games over here, but almost certainly they also know that there isn't an insatiable appetite for all UK NFL fans to have an eight game season ticket and trying to get 90,000 people to an eight game UK franchise would be tough. Getting 50 to 60,000 into WHL would be considerably easier.
The amount of money pumped in to the new WHL by the NFL surely that will be the location for a London franchise? And the demand is there, this team will be the only NFL team in Europe. The crowds they get to Wembley are huge.
Don't know the details but seems the Wembley purchase is more of an investment IMO. I can't see a franchise or Fulham playing there.
Wasn't it "only" £10M that the NFL put into WHL?
They have paid £10m already. Do you think Levy would sign a ten year deal and have a retractable pitch for only £10m?
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Every so often this pops up in our local paper. The sports writers were apoplectic when the World Cup was here, constantly having to deride football in comparison to their favorite sport.