John and ........... John's BS: Episode 2

I don’t really know what the NFL is thinking with talk of permanently establishing a presence in England or anywhere else in Europe (with the possible exception of Germany, where American military bases and the lack of an existing, popular carry-and-tackle sport left a -small- opening.). First off, they already have “football” (i.e. soccer) and while the games are very different, the branding issues alone leave a lot of Europeans sour on our game, not to mention the fact that many people feel they need to pick one type of football over all others as the “true” game (I’m also looking at YOU, American soccer-haters).

Secondly, Great Britain (and France and Italy) already have rugby (aka rugby football), a game where, get this, men try to avoid being tackled while they carry an oblong goal towards the end of the field (where they “touch down” the ball to score, then attempting to add extra points with an attempt to kick the ball through uprights). They also throw it to their teammates in an effort to help them score! (And yes, I PERSONALLY agree that the forward pass makes our game better than rugby, but we’re not talking about me here.)

While rugby (there are two types, by the way, and the one that is more similar to American football is actually LESS popular) ebbs and flows more like soccer, and thus largely avoids the NEED we have in the American game for universal helmet use and thick pads (our guys sprint straight at each other from opposite directions; rugby usually involves more angles, resulting in more tackles that look like our game once someone gets behind the linebackers), the fact that rugby is played by men without pads becomes another strike against American football in the eyes of Europeans; they actually think our game LESS manly than rugby, and frankly, high level soccer results in enough injuries and bloody highlights that many of them think that soccer players are tougher than our overly padded, coddled babies. I disagree: soccer and rugby are certainly CONTACT sports, but American football is frackin’ COLLISION sport, but again, we’re not talking about me.

Finally, what both soccer and rugby have that American football, by it’s very nature, cannot have is constant action and relatively few stops (My thoughts on the number of commercial timeouts in NFL and College football are an entire post unto themselves). This is a difference that I think is unfair to consider a weakness, but many Europeans, brought up o their own sports, think it is exactly that. Track down the comments to any BBC online story about the NFL’s games in London, and you will see DOZENS of complaints about the stop-start nature of our game.

What this all means is that the NFL is fighting an uphill battle to even claim widespread RESPECT for their game, much less interest, in Europe. The spectacle and novelty of seeing a full speed version of the game the Americans love so much will continue to make one-off games a big draw, but, especially when combined with the logistic difficulties already mentioned, make a constant NFL presence in Europe more chauvinistic fantasy than any real threat to the Jaguars or any other franchise.

My long posts always have lots of typos in them. :-)

MLS is doing fine. Niche market, to be sure, but fine.