American Football in London

[koodledrum]

No, i played rugby in high school a few times and have played more than enough football in my time to know you're looking at a very tame version thereof - i've never once went down without justification and would die before doing so, we play properly, what you're looking at is as i said, the overpaid nancy boys, semi retired guys or people more interested in how they'll look in the nightclub.

I have seen a WR/RB running full speed, it's impressive, but like i said, i've seen footballers every bit as fast including several that are that speed with the ball at their feet and some who WILL run shoulder to shoulder with defenders without going down. You don't seem to respect the fact that those guys are fit, they don't do it by accident - but i'm not going to convince you when clearly, you're not open to understanding the game.

Also helmet to helmet hits - kinda illegal these days.

[DasHuntard]

i dunno after seeing last years broncos niners game im skeptical of having American foot ball out side of the us other then Canada and Mexico,plus
for the love of god McDumbass really made football look bad to the rest of the world

[Docsauce]

The smallest professional American football stadiums have around 65,000 seats. The larger ones have upwards of 80,000 to 90,000. Given how many teams there are in the NFL (32), that means there are at least 32 stadiums for professional football with at least 65,000 seats. This is of course not mentioning the huge mega stadiums for college football. Michigan, Tennessee, and Penn State all have 100,000+ seating. And there are also TONS of other college teams in the 55,000 to 100,000 range. The majority of major BCS conference teams have professional quality stadiums. In the US, these stadiums are needed to cater to fan support and attendance.

The overall point of this explanation is that American football in America requires these mega stadiums to provide the best experience for their fans, which are usually at about capacity. This wouldn't be a problem with a London or UK based team. The interest in the game wouldn't even be half of what it is here, so I think a 35,000+ seat stadium would do and would be considered a success for a UK based team. This of course would be a launching point in a campaign to try and generate interest.

However, having a team across the Atlantic isn't all that far-fetched for all the east coast teams (Giants, Patriots, Dolphins, etc.). For them it would be like having to fly to San Diego to play the chargers or to Oakland to play the raiders and visa versa for a UK team. The problem arises when the west coast US teams would have to play the UK team, repeated 5400 mile flights and intense jet lag would be serious problems both financially for the teams and physically for players. The only feasible thing would be only to schedule one or two west coast match ups (without playoffs) max per season for a London team and mainly just schedule east coast opponents to reduce the strain.

However this is all complete speculation. I like the idea of the NBA and NFL trying to expand to London, but for the NFL I think the next immediate step would be Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal. Football is the only major North American Sports league (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA) to not currently have a single franchise based in Canada