NFL Europa Officially dead

Passport expires: NFL Europa folds after 16 years

The NFL's development league in Europe folded Friday after 16 years. ...more

 

NFL Europe (germany) quits after 16 years

NFL Europe quits after 16 years, leaving just alone the amateurs.

Is sad because if not because of my gf I was in berlin a month ago and did not watch the Thunders so i wouldnt upset my girl with my little football obsession.

From my side and experience, the Dragons did not help any other amateur football teams to develope but few in the Barcelona area.


The links:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/6974478?CMP=OTC-K9B140813162&ATT=5
http://cbs.sportsline.com/nfl/story/10240824/rss

 

Shame, but they're gonna concentrate on regular season games now, outside the U.S, which may or may not be better, but they'll gain much more profit...

 

Pasquarelli: NFL Europa ends with a whimper, not a bang

Once viewed as a way to expand the NFL globally and develop players, NFL Europa simply couldn't fulfill expectations, writes Len Pasquarelli. ...more

 

Man, nobody cared about the NFL Europe league anyways. All the teams were basically placed in Germany and the national German league probably has a bigger attendance than most NFLE games.

 

I watched it from time to time. I liked seeing players I knew from college get a chance to keep playing and prove themselves.

BTW, the Browns have a RB named Chris Barclay that looked amazing over there. Keep an eye on him in TC.

 

Payton looked amazing over there too...

 

It might be more profitable but I have concerns on the affect. First of all for every game played outside the US a team is going to be giving up a home game (basically a neutral field instead) which isn't fair to fans or the team. In some sports it might not make much difference but home field advantage is still pretty strong in football.

Secondly you have the added travel for the teams involved and how is that going to affect the teams? Obviously you could make sure both teams have their bye week after the game or something but I wonder if it will change the competition. In a league where one game difference in the win loss column can be so critical (look at us last year) you wonder about the overall affect (imagine of we missed the playoffs by one game and one of our losses was a game in Germany that would have normally been a home game).

Actually the 30 million loss per year is peanuts to the league (only 1 mil per team). I'm not saying some changes might have to be made and maybe some kind of minor league football league could be worth having if planned and run properly. One of the problems I had with the league was unlike minor league baseball there was no corresponsing identity with the teams in Europe and here. I might actually follow the games more if we had a minor league franchise called the Titans with potential Titan players. Not sure if thats possible (no way we have 31 minor league teams). Also the success rate overall for developing players wasn't all that great and the level of competition seemed worse than Div II college. I always thought some arrangement with Canadian football might be kind of cool.

 

The problem is the NFL needs to figure what they want. Do they want a league for farming players (like NFLE) or do they want to promote football in Europe (and the rest of the world)?
You can't have both, because the farming leagues won't get any great attention from "local" fans because of the frequent roster changes and lack of national players and if they opt to promote football in Europe (by supporting national leagues, playing regular season NFL games etc.) you won't get anything in return in terms of players for the NFL (at least not short term) although the financial return might be the same or better (if they put regular season games here).