Where would the Raiders go?

[Throwdown]

They should build a stadium in SF, and rename themselves the SF Raiders, like the Warriors are planning to do. That would really stick it to the Santa Clara Niners.

LOL.

Well...

1) Raider fans would be killing in the streets.
2) Niner fans would be mildy annoyed.
3) The Warriors were in SF to begin with and are the Bay Areas ONLY Basketball team. Raiders and Niners fans hate each other. Giants and A's fans hate each other. We all kinda unite tho on the Warriors and Sharks. There is a reason they never became the Oakland Warriors and were called Golden State.

Marvin no like the Kings?! lol

 

[themunn]

NFL Europe failed miserably, yet the owners are insistent in their claim that people in that part of the world are hungry for American football. It's a curiosity with those folks over there, not bred into them by participation in the high schools and colleges like we have here in the States. No way will they buy all the hats and jerseys in the qualities we do, or watch games to the tune of 9-12 hours a week like we do.

NFL Europe "failed miserably" because it was essentially practice squad players squaring off against practice squad players - people are interested in watching sports at the elite level - even then attendance averaged around 15-25,000 for most teams, impressive considering the standard on display. I grew up in Glasgow and the Scottish claymores averaged between 10-15,000 per game. That doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that made them a top 5 supported sports club in Scotland - for essentially Arena League football, you can imagine that the market for an elite team facing elite teams on a week by week basis would be significantly greater - and that's talking about Glasgow, a city whose metropolitan population is about a third of Seattle's - compare that to London which is over 3 times the size and you can imagine that there won't be any trouble filling a stadium (as there hasn't been)

The main issue with the whole idea though is that most existing NFL fans are fans of an established team (I live in London now, but certainly wouldn't support a London based team), however, the team could draw on the fact that many fans would be attracted to watching the visiting team play - it would mean the team has probably the worst "home advantage" in the league, but this would be offset somewhat by the fact that the actual location would give a far greater advantage over the actual support.
It would take at least 5 years before you started to see a core group of fans for the local team to really get going though I reckon

 

[RiverDog]

NFL Europe failed miserably, yet the owners are insistent in their claim that people in that part of the world are hungry for American football. It's a curiosity with those folks over there, not bred into them by participation in the high schools and colleges like we have here in the States. No way will they buy all the hats and jerseys in the qualities we do, or watch games to the tune of 9-12 hours a week like we do.

NFL Europe "failed miserably" because it was essentially practice squad players squaring off against practice squad players - people are interested in watching sports at the elite level - even then attendance averaged around 15-25,000 for most teams, impressive considering the standard on display. I grew up in Glasgow and the Scottish claymores averaged between 10-15,000 per game. That doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that made them a top 5 supported sports club in Scotland - for essentially Arena League football, you can imagine that the market for an elite team facing elite teams on a week by week basis would be significantly greater - and that's talking about Glasgow, a city whose metropolitan population is about a third of Seattle's - compare that to London which is over 3 times the size and you can imagine that there won't be any trouble filling a stadium (as there hasn't been)

The main issue with the whole idea though is that most existing NFL fans are fans of an established team (I live in London now, but certainly wouldn't support a London based team), however, the team could draw on the fact that many fans would be attracted to watching the visiting team play - it would mean the team has probably the worst "home advantage" in the league, but this would be offset somewhat by the fact that the actual location would give a far greater advantage over the actual support.
It would take at least 5 years before you started to see a core group of fans for the local team to really get going though I reckon

I'm not too impressed. How well do you think that a minor league football team would do in a place like Boise, Missoula, or Topeka, little po-dunk towns compared to a major metro area like Glasgow with a metro area of 1.75M, if there was a prospect of some day landing an NFL team if they draw well?

IMO if the NFL wants to build a fan base, they need to do it from the grass roots level first, and since it's not practical to start a college league or some sort of semi pro club league, minor league football is the only way they can achieve that goal. The only way they're going to make NFL football work in Europe is to get enough viable franchises to where they can have their own division, and that means 4-6 teams, not one team where you have to travel across the pond so often.

This is not about satisfying the customer demands of football starved fans in Europe. It's about money, money for the owners. They are no different than a Fortune 500 company expanding into a new market in order to increase their stock value or increase their dividends. This will not provide their base supporters, ie season ticket holders and others that support their team, with a better product or a lower price.

 

[Giblien]

Given the fact that the NFL wants to expand into Mexico, and the fact that there are a lot of hispanic raider fans, I could actually see them going to Mexico. I don't know how likely or profitable it would be from a financial standpoint, but the fanbase would be there for sure.

 

[halfrack]

Honolulu?

 

[MB12]

NFL Europe failed miserably, yet the owners are insistent in their claim that people in that part of the world are hungry for American football. It's a curiosity with those folks over there, not bred into them by participation in the high schools and colleges like we have here in the States. No way will they buy all the hats and jerseys in the qualities we do, or watch games to the tune of 9-12 hours a week like we do.

NFL Europe "failed miserably" because it was essentially practice squad players squaring off against practice squad players - people are interested in watching sports at the elite level - even then attendance averaged around 15-25,000 for most teams, impressive considering the standard on display. I grew up in Glasgow and the Scottish claymores averaged between 10-15,000 per game. That doesn't sound like much, but when you consider that made them a top 5 supported sports club in Scotland - for essentially Arena League football, you can imagine that the market for an elite team facing elite teams on a week by week basis would be significantly greater - and that's talking about Glasgow, a city whose metropolitan population is about a third of Seattle's - compare that to London which is over 3 times the size and you can imagine that there won't be any trouble filling a stadium (as there hasn't been)

I completely agree with you
The main issue with the whole idea though is that most existing NFL fans are fans of an established team (I live in London now, but certainly wouldn't support a London based team), however, the team could draw on the fact that many fans would be attracted to watching the visiting team play - it would mean the team has probably the worst "home advantage" in the league, but this would be offset somewhat by the fact that the actual location would give a far greater advantage over the actual support.
It would take at least 5 years before you started to see a core group of fans for the local team to really get going though I reckon

 

[RiverDog]

Given the fact that the NFL wants to expand into Mexico, and the fact that there are a lot of hispanic raider fans, I could actually see them going to Mexico. I don't know how likely or profitable it would be from a financial standpoint, but the fanbase would be there for sure.

Mexico is a third world country in the midst of one of the ugliest, most prolonged drug wars the western hemisphere has ever seen. There has been 70,000 deaths related to the drug wars in the past 6 years, more than we lost in Vietnam in the '60's. I can't imagine the NFL putting a franchise there, at least not under present conditions.