London GM sounds off on Yahoo Sports!

[jcompton-Orlando]

http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news?slug=cr-mailbag061405&prov=yhoo&type=lgns (scroll to bottom)

[Andrew-Neutral]

Good points, Jason. I do wonder about the future of NFLE. The plans for world domination seem to be dead for now - the NFL doesn't seem to want to expand its markets any more. I have a copy of the NFL's 75th Anniversary book, which predicts a global NFL, with teams in Europe, Asia and America. Those were the days.......... With the world domination plans dead, you have to ask what is the point of NFLE - as the guy on Yahoo sports says, why not just have all the NFL allocates in a summer-long camp for them to brush up on their skills? The "developmental league" idea is not sustainable.

[Paul-London]

I still think NFLE can be even better if used properly.  Even in summer camps you wont get proper real life game action.  Even for a QB to lead a 2 minute drill in front of 20,000 fans in Germany with the pressure/noise etc is very valuable.

When used properly (eg Kansas City) you can do very well out of NFL Europe, the quality of player nowadays is much better coming to NFLE and leaving NFLE, the nationals are much better even though a fair few are still underused and i hope next year will be even better.

Craig Krenzel was recently cut as he refused to go to NFLE and was eventually let go by Chicago, Krenzel could have done well out of NFLE.  Yes the attendances are a bit padded but this year seemed to be a marked improvement.

But even though its hard to do i dont like the slight 'fixing'.  Eg i knew from Week 1 Amsterdam would be in the final, wish i had put a bet on now.  With 5 german teams and a dutch team it was obvious that dutch team was going to do well.

That takes nothing away from them and i hope the Admiral fans here dont slaughter me but just reminded me of the early WLAF.  1991 all the europe teams did so wel, 1992 the europe teams were terrible and 'surprise' the American teams were brilliant to try to help attendances etc

I hope like anything NFLE continues as i think this year considering the last few years was a very positive one

[Niki]

finally our office did something smart, they will soon start will selling season tickets for next year, now everyone has still fresh in its mind that we won the world bowl so we must be able to break the number of seasontickets sold this year ( +3,000) beside that the American press was very impressed by the number of admirals fans in the WB (+/- 7k) and the noise we made: http://www.nytimes.com/iht/2005/06/12/sports/IHT-12BOWL.html?pagewanted=all

But the league's only remaining non-German team turned the tables on the defending champion Berlin Thunder. 7,000 Dutch fans, in a crowd of 34,134, transformed Düsseldorf's LTU Arena into an Admirals home game, smothering the yellow decorations of the game sponsor, Yello Strom, in a sea of orange.

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/8554982

It was like a home game for the Admirals, who were 5-0 at home during the season and 1-4 on the road. They wore their home jerseys, their fans far outnumbered Berlin's, and the neutral Germans were, well, neutral. It seemed like each Admiral fan came equipped with an air-horn, and the noise whenever Berlin had the ball was deafening, even with the roof of the LTU Arena open.

[jcompton-Orlando]

A 6-team league is just boring, period. I gave up following the league a few years ago because it was always the same... half the league was hopeless and forgettable after just a couple of weeks of play. There wasn't even much spoiler potential due to the compressed schedule. (It didn't help that the Monarchs were always in that half, of course, but I'd back the Galaxy as my second choice and even still, God, it was dull.)

[Paul-London]

Well i think they have to get it right for a 6 team league first before expanding.

Plus the more teams you'll have the amount of NFL allocations would be spread a lot more thinly and a fair few fans probably wouldnt go to games.

I would love to see more teams but even though now theres no Monarchs or Claymores sadly i still like NFLE.  I must admit this year despite highlight shows being on TV i didnt bother with it for the first time ever as the tape delayed Monarchs or Claymore games i loved but just dont have time for highlight shows of the german teams at the moment.

Did watch the whole of the World Bowl which was an excellent game though