Arena Football League expanding to Europe
BOPPARD – During the tenth annual NFLE-FAN-MEETING in Boppard we had a talk with Stephen Smith of the Arena Football League. What started as rumors last year has now all been confirmed. The AFL is looking for ways to expand its league in Europe. That's right, expand. No second class development league but teams that are up to competing for the ArenaBowl against their American based counterparts like the San Jose SaberCats or Philadelphia Soul.
Stephen Smith:
On the front row seats you can catch a player or a ball. You can keep the ball but you need to throw the players back, we need them.
The indoor variant should also appeal more to the European fans as the pace is quicker, and the scores are higher. An added bonus is that the spectators in the front rows are in the game. The net and the sides are fair game. If a spectator can catch the ball before the opposing team can grab it it's his. His team will get a Fan Interferance penalty but at least they didn't score that game winning touchdown.
So, what can we expect in the near future? Well, the AFL is wants to hold a exhibition game in Germany at the end of this year. From earlier news we heard that the Philadelphia Soul and Chicago Rush will face each other in an exhibition game in Hamburg. The latest information is that this could be in Hamburg or in Dusseldorf, both are still contending locations.
In the spring the plan is to have a few pre-season games played in Germany as well. They would like to see Amsterdam host the first All-Star game out of the USA.
At this moment there's being looked at Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Mannheim. Cologne was also in the picture but the dome there is to big. The strategy is to fill up a dome. The dome in Cologne can hold 18.000 spectators but the AFL is aiming for 12.000 per game. In that case press would only write about the 6000 empty seats and not the 12.000 filled seats. Also, selling out a 10.000 seater is better then leaving 6000 open seats in a 18.000 seater eventhough there are more spectators.
What other cities might get a team depends on the cities themselves. The AFL wants local partners, like 2Plus in Germany, to help out in achieving this goal. At this moment Amsterdam, Barcelona and London are in the picture and have shown interest in hosting a team. The AFL also want local owners like in the USA and these owners will be at the same league meetings as Jon Bon Jovi, Mike Ditka, Bob Nucci and the other AFL owners. They will have input in how the league should develop.
As for the European teams, will it be Admirals, Dragons, Fire, Monarchs, Sea Devils again? Well, New York has the Dragons, so I believe there will be no Barcelona Dragons. As for the other teams, the NFL has come to an agreement with the AFL about the usage of the team names as you probably have read here last year. Using the NFL Europe/World League names has some advantages but also disadvantages.
One advantage is that the German press already saying “Sea Devils kommen zurück” and “Fire is back”. This gives a PR advantage since most people who have heard about the NFLE team will know the AFL team. On the other hand, some fans will always see the outdoor team as there team and will never support indoor variant.
As you can see in the poll results on this site. Out of the over 1200 voters about 95% say that they will support their former team. That is still a good fan base considering the NFL Europa's last season attendance.
As the teams here will be full AFL franchises players will also get multiple year contracts and will not change much from year to year like the NFL Europe where teams got fresh players and some protected players. This will also appeal more to the fans as they can support the same players year in year out and not have a fresh batch of players every year who they don't know. Also, having contracted players will increase the level of the teams since you have a steady team to build on.
According to Mr. Smith this will improve the local popularity of the team. NFL Europe veteran Jason Shelly already stated that if Amsterdam gets a AFL team he surely wishes to play there. “A player like that should get a three year contract,” Mr. Smith said.
The AFL has learned from the NFL's mistakes. The NFL tried to force the American way onto the European organizations which doesn't work here. The AFL has learned from that and with the experience of also working with the NFL Europe they know how it works in Europe and how not to handle a business here.
From all of this we can conclude that the setup will be like the old World League with teams in the USA and in Europe. First thing that came to our mind was the logistical problems of moving a whole team over the ocean. In response to that Mr. Smith said: “An NFL team travels with about 80 persons, players and staff. An AFL teams travels with 30 persons and that's only 15 double hotel rooms.” Further more, “a plane ticket from New York to Los Angeles costs about $550, from New York to Amsterdam around $700. That's a fractional difference. The teams will come to Europe for a few weeks and play there games here and the same goes for the European teams, they'll go to the USA for a few weeks and play there games.”
