By Stephen Cooney
New Wembley Stadium is one of the oldest and largest venues in the entire world. To people in Britain, the stadium is the pinnacle of sport almost on the same level as the Coliseum was to Rome, minus the Gladiators and gore.
Football fans will stand in line for hours just to catch a glimpse of a match. The nation’s football identity lingers in the stadium like a thick fog and many people believe the stadium itself to be the home of football.
Kind of fitting that the NFL would pick New Wembley to host a game in Europe right?
No, not even a little bit not for one single second. The only people that stood in line to catch a glimpse of an NFL game in New Wembley are Americans and American transplants. Sure, a few Europeans went to the game but American football has no business traveling all the way across the Atlantic like colonial conquerors changing the European sports world.
Don’t get me wrong I love football. I watch almost every single game every weekend. I literally mean every single game, but there is no reason for a football team from America to travel to New Wembley to play a football game in front of fans that travel from America to the game. Yes, it is nice for the Americans that have now live in Europe but for the most part no one in Europe outside of Americans cares or wants to care about the NFL. It is simply a futile tactic for marketing and a waste of everyone’s time, however I am not totally against the idea of American sports leagues traveling to Europe to play meaningful regular season games.
Yes, the NHL made one of the best decisions they have in a long time by kicking the season off with games in both Prague and Sweden. The fanfare included games against European hockey clubs and was at the start of the season; not smack dab in the middle of it. The early games gave the teams a chance to travel and then come back and get into the stride of the regular season. Let’s not forget the fact that people actually care about hockey in Europe.
The NFL could take a few tips from the NHL, as odd as that might sound. We all know who is the stronger and for the most part more organized league, but the NHL hit the international nail right on the head. They went into two countries that love the game, packed the stadium for four games and brought the teams back home for the rest of their season. The players seemed to enjoy it and North American fans did not seem to mind that a few games were going to be played out of the country.
Maybe the NFL can try to follow suit and play a game in one of these two countries: Mexico or Canada. Both of the countries care about football and there is a large fan following in both for the game.
All in all I am for traveling outside of the country and believe it is a good way for the leagues to grow, the only problem is that the NFL is pandering to fans that do not care while the NHL is nailing down fans of both the game and some of the players who are traveling to the countries.