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NFL Europe shuts down

G

goranski

Guest
http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/29062007/58/...ope-league.html



guess this isn't much of surprise, after years of losing tens of millions of dollars annually abroad, failing franchises in almost all European countries, fortressing itself with teams only in Germany and the Netherlands, failing to secure viable domestic broadcasting deals, etc



the "international" strategy now seems to be to stage regular season games abroad :rolleyes:
 
Hardly worth it, no local players ever made it, all it did was provide a place for Americans to spend 6 months and try to make a Practice Squad.

Although it did help Kurt Warner and Jake Delhomme to get noticed.
 
Amazing, nobody noticed the league had shut down.


Saying that, 98% of the population never even knew the league existed.
 
Hardly worth it, no local players ever made it, all it did was provide a place for Americans to spend 6 months and try to make a Practice Squad.

Although it did help Kurt Warner and Jake Delhomme to get noticed. [/b]

La Roi Glover, ex-Cowboys, DT
Adam Vinateri, ex-Pats now Colts, K
David Akers, Eagles, K
Jay Fiedler, Dolphins, QB
Marco Rivera, Cowboys, G

There are more than that!

Europe managed to develop the game for many players

http://www.nfl.com/nfleurope/alumni
 
I knew some guys that played in it...
Sort of a pointless league, IMO. Like Europeans will ever really like our football. Besides, AFL (Arena League Football) has really taken off and can be used as a sort of minor league.
Farewell NFLE, your much cooler Uniforms will be missed.
 
I knew some guys that played in it...
Sort of a pointless league, IMO. Like Europeans will ever really like our football. Besides, AFL (Arena League Football) has really taken off and can be used as a sort of minor league.
Farewell NFLE, your much cooler Uniforms will be missed.
[/b]

To be honest I did follow it when London had a side, very brief apperance but also when the Claymores where in existents I would follow. Of course its not great but I can tell you that over the past couple of years the popularity of the NFL has increased because of the Giatns and Dolphins at Wembley but the fact is NFL Europe is a breeding ground for the main NFL! The Germans and Dutch did not realy play or even watch it so it was pointless!
 
NFL Europe was like a worse version of the XFL. I hate American football as it is, but NFL Europe is just a travesty.

Even worse, the NFL is presenting the World Cup of Football in Seoul, SK. Apparently the first game is South Korea vs. France.

It's like a trainwreck... I don't want to watch... but I can't look away...

Almost like the South African team at the World Baseball Classic...
 
Yeah, NFL Europe was great. It was awful, just used as a training ground for crap NFL players and made sure that the Germans would never ever be receptive to games like Rugby ever again!

Typical American intervention that. Invade, screw everything up, make sure nothing is working and then leave "with honour". What a fiasco.
 
Yeah, NFL Europe was great. It was awful, just used as a training ground for crap NFL players and made sure that the Germans would never ever be receptive to games like Rugby ever again!
[/b]



How so? Was there ever really potential for rugby growth in other European countries? Personally I always thought Rugby was the team sport that was most suited to the german psyche; a game requiring precision, cohension and efficiency, it was basically made for them!
 
NFL Europe was like a worse version of the XFL. I hate American football as it is, but NFL Europe is just a travesty.
[/b]

Why don't you try and explain why it is a travesty? Not only, disliking American football as you do, will it be biased, but I very much doubt you know the slightest thing about NFL Europe.



Almost like the South African team at the World Baseball Classic... [/b]

I think you are completely misunderstanding the reason for the World Baseball Classic. Yes, there were teams there which were completely outshone, but the idea of the WBC was to raise awareness and funding for baseball in countries where it is not one of the major sports - if you read interviews with any of the South African players, they were simply thrilled to experience playing in a World Tournament in a game that is 'not even third most important' in a sports mad country.

http://ww2.worldbaseballclassic.com/2006/n...=en&sid=wbc

http://ww2.worldbaseballclassic.com/2006/n...=en&sid=wbc

There are some articles to prove my point.



Events like the WBC, or even the Rugby World Cup, encourage the 'smaller' teams to play the game - no-one (in their right mind...) is pretending that Tonga would have a chance against the All-Blacks this year, but the chances are that several years down the line, they might be at the level of Fiji, Italy, Argentina, etc. There are also upsets, such as the fact that the USA pitching got beat up by both Canada and Korea at the WBC, and that the supposed favourites, and the 'home of the game' had a record of 3-3 and finished last in their semi's pool.



As for your short-sighted views on the American Football international competition, all of my points from above stand.




Oh, and just for your information:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article_perspectiv...wbc&sid=wbc

You should pay close attention to the 3rd sentence - you might be eating your words about France and South Korea.
 
Schoolbrats and girls play Baseball outside of the US. They call it rounders.

rounders.jpg

Some more steroids and this fellow too can become famous for murdering innocent pigeon.


<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/47Xz2lJnrkI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/47Xz2lJnrkI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>
 
How so? Was there ever really potential for rugby growth in other European countries? Personally I always thought Rugby was the team sport that was most suited to the german psyche; a game requiring precision, cohension and efficiency, it was basically made for them!
[/b]

Definitely! If only they'd take it up! Sure there were pretty good teams in the past like the Bremen Police team which would play the British Army (stationed in Bremen as part of ye olde British Army of the Rhine) on a regular basis but on a national level, the Germans just haven't gotten into it. They've taken to Gridiron in more numbers (average crowd of 20,000 to Berlin thunder games in NFL Europa's last season) than had been expected. 20,000 per game?! In only 16 years of the game touching down in Europe?! That is phenomenal development, something which we should take note of when approaching the development of the game overseas.

In the end, Rugby should suit a range of European nations down to a tee but for some reason Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway just haven't taken the bait. It is rather strange that nations like Portugal are developing the game at a faster pace than the likes of Germany and nobody can fathom a reason as to why!
 
That's a real shame actually... I have a German mate out here at the moment and I took him to the State of Origin and the Bledisloe cup cause he wanted to see a couple big Australian sporting events, and he absolutely loved both of them! He made a comment about how frustrated he'd get at soccer games and said he was much more satisfied watching rugby because the hits on the field and the complexity of the game kept him more engaged... I have to get more Germans along hahaha
 
Schoolbrats and girls play Baseball outside of the US. They call it rounders.

rounders.jpg

Some more steroids and this fellow too can become famous for murdering innocent pigeon.


<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/47Xz2lJnrkI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/47Xz2lJnrkI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>


[/b]



Trust to the English to take a Stupidly Boring Sport and turn it into something even more stupidly unwatchable and boring.
 
<div class='quotemain'>
How so? Was there ever really potential for rugby growth in other European countries? Personally I always thought Rugby was the team sport that was most suited to the german psyche; a game requiring precision, cohension and efficiency, it was basically made for them!
[/b]

Definitely! If only they'd take it up! Sure there were pretty good teams in the past like the Bremen Police team which would play the British Army (stationed in Bremen as part of ye olde British Army of the Rhine) on a regular basis but on a national level, the Germans just haven't gotten into it. They've taken to Gridiron in more numbers (average crowd of 20,000 to Berlin thunder games in NFL Europa's last season) than had been expected. 20,000 per game?! In only 16 years of the game touching down in Europe?! That is phenomenal development, something which we should take note of when approaching the development of the game overseas.

In the end, Rugby should suit a range of European nations down to a tee but for some reason Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway just haven't taken the bait. It is rather strange that nations like Portugal are developing the game at a faster pace than the likes of Germany and nobody can fathom a reason as to why! [/b][/quote]



Funnily enough, I was somewhat introduced to rugby union in Germany while I was there at school for a year during high school at the "Englische Institut" in Heidelberg in the southwest of the country. The institute had a school team that competed at the national level and there were numerous clubs around as well.



If only the British had solely themselves occupied Germany after WWII or both wars for that matter, who knows where rugby might be at this point...Heidelberg in southern Germany which is one of the few places where rugby is played quite a bit and rugby posts are quite prominent in the landscape. Most of these clubs were founded and flourished due to British influence. The same holds true for Hannover, the other rugby 'center' in Germany where British connections from soldiers stationed there for the royals kicked off the game over a century ago. Since then there have also been French, South African and Antipodeans supporting and playing the game while working or stationed in Germany.



Personally I'm not a fan of American Football, but the game has had moderate success in Germany at the grassroots, amateur and semi-pro level with the German Football League which attracts moderate attendances sometimes around 10,000 or more. Of course money has been poured into this development plus the exposure of the failed NFLE.



I only wish the phenomenon with the growth of rugby in southwest France could have occured in Germany as the game was introduced in a similar fashion.



I visit the German rugby union website frequently and there is some progress being made with more of the national team playing in France for top amateur or D2 clubs - plus Rugby is being shown a bit more frequently on TV nowadays with the Six Nations being televised and even a German national team test or two. Plus there seems to be more work being done in the schools. However, what really needs to happen is more media exposure - which was the case in Heidelberg on a local level where newspapers and even television media covered the club and youth scene and national team games.



Despite these small triumphs rugby of either code is still largely unknown to all but a small number of Germans. As far as team sports, Soccer gets the blanket coverage, then Handball and then maybe ice hockey, AF, and numerous other sports are ahead.



Perhaps one day....'tis but a dream.
 
<div class='quotemain'> Schoolbrats and girls play Baseball outside of the US. They call it rounders.

rounders.jpg

Some more steroids and this fellow too can become famous for murdering innocent pigeon.


<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/47Xz2lJnrkI"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/47Xz2lJnrkI" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>


[/b]



Trust to the English to take a Stupidly Boring Sport and turn it into something even more stupidly unwatchable and boring. [/b][/quote]

Take a sport?

We invented all of them, arseface!
 
Yeah, it was us who introduced Baseball to the Colonies.

Jane Austin even mentioned in one of her books, Northanger Abbey (written between 1798 and 1803), talks of boys & girls playing "base-ball" on the village green. The first ever mention of the game is actually from a wood cut which appears in a 1744 publication. The appearance of the game in the wood cut shows the game has changed only by a little since it first came about.
 
baseball is still far greater than cricket..

and rounders is nothing like baseball, whats that lil fag english boy doing..
 

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