Egghead - Move Premiership games to the US

[Guest rebel_yell12]

There's simply no equitable way to export matches to any country during the season.  Imagine if you are assigned a Monday night match one week, or have a midweek cup or European match and then a Saturday afternoon match...in America.  Travel takes up one entire day (7-10 hour flight, depending on where in the US).  It's just not feasible.  Also, which teams would give up a home match to go play in a neutral -- and how do you fairly decide that?  Pre-season might be possible though.  The difficulty there, to be honest, is playing in the American summer.  If you've never been to Los Angeles, for example, in July/August...it's miserably hot.  All those complaints about the heat during WC '06 --trust me, Germany has nothing on southern California for heat.  New York and Chicago aren't much better.  And if you play during the season, you'll also have to consider American winters.  Again, nothing like in England.  In New York and Chicago, winter starts around now and goes to April.  By that, I mean, it can snow any time during those months.  There is a reason the MLS has a messed up season compared to the rest of the world and takes the winters off.  It might sound all right on paper, to talk about spreading the Premiership to the US, but honestly, it's not possible.  I'm not expecting anything to come of this.  Although since I now live on the wrong side of the Atlantic, I would greatly enjoy seeing proper football.  I'd settle for getting the EPL on the telly.  And not on channel 106 like it is now (expanded digital cable, so I can watch even some matches, costs me $90 a month and most people don't want to pay that). 

 

And spizz energi, since I can speak with some authority having played both games -- rounders doesn't really compare to baseball.  Until you've stood as a batter and watched a 90 mile per hour tennis-sized ball of steel (that's what it feels like when it hits you) approaching from 60 feet away...don't slag off the sport.  Rounders is an easy schoolyard game, baseball done properly (as Yanks do) is not.  Similarly, I tire of people criticizing American football players for wearing padding.  While I don't care for the sport, never have and never will no matter how many times my Yank neighbors make me watch it, if they didn't wear pads and helmets they'd likely kill each other.  It's much more violent than rugby, and yes, I've played rugby up through college.  I have never, in all my life, heard rugby fans shouting in quite the manner of American football fans.  "Hit him" was the gentlest, varying up right to "knock his head off" and "kill him".  Not kidding.  I was a bit put off by that.  Nice little girl next to me, about 17, looked sweet and innocent, flirted a bit, then the game starts and she was calling for blood and maiming and death.  Apparently, the point of tackling in American football is to hit the opponent as hard as possible with the intention of causing bodily injury (to a degree).  They call this "making him feel it".  Roy Keane should have played gridiron.  He'd have been right at home.

 

And by the way, no Baltimore doesn't have an MLS team.  The Philadelphia Eagles play in the NFL, as do the Baltimore Ravens (and yes, I hate the Americans' custom of stupid nicknames, at least the MLS is starting to abandon that).  But neither city has an MLS club.  New York, Boston, Washington, Columbus (Ohio), Chicago, Dallas, Houston, Toronto, Colorado, Kansas City, Los Angeles (two clubs), and Salt Lake City have clubs.  So I would expect those to be the proposed locations of matches.  Most have the large NFL stadiums available, and are large cities with potential markets.  But honestly, I can't see the EPL ever trying this seriously.  It's just not feasible.

[ohmelads]

Rebel yell, I appreciate you're more qualified than me to compare the sports because you live over there, but I find your comments about rugby pretty curious.

 

Earlier this year an Australian rugby player found a tooth embedded in his head. Your example of people talking the talk doesn't really compare, in rugby you don't have the referee constantly stopping the game, you have to expect things like eye gauging, biting, punching, stamping and all the rest of it which will not be spotted by the one and only referee, and the game will probably not be stopped either. In the scrum or in a ruck you have to expect it. Losing teeth, cauliflower ears and a face bent out of shape is part of the game, not many prop forwards keep their looks! People often talk about the tackles, but in rugby that's just one part of it.

 

American Football is undoubtedly a 'tough' game, but to compare it to rugby is going a bit far. I watched the NFL game today for a bit of craic, and some of those players would be eaten alive on the rugby field, and I certainly doubt they would be coming out with those macho comments when they are in the middle of a scrum. Anybody who goes around the rugby field talking like that will quickly learn the hard way and will probably get targetted. I have heard those sorts of things in football (soccer), "break his legs" etc, but then nobody claims this is a tough game.

 

Anyway, not meaning to take this thread off on a big tangent, but I found the comparison a strange one.

[toonarmy]

Rugby violence and NFL violence are very different. Rugby players are tough, tough men. As ohmelads said, you have all the eye gouging, biting, stomping, teeth losing, nose crumpling and occasional bone breaking too. But in the NFL, its not just that they are tough men, (which they are, trust me you'd be terrified if you saw them up close.) It's that they have all that inaction followed by a pure head-on car crash collision every half minute. The NFL players are between 250-350 pounds on average, and run lightning fast. There was some rugby expert who said the collisions in rugby are nothing compared to the NFL ones, where they hit each other as if shot out of cannons, he used some statistics to back that up. They are basically human missiles, launching themselves at top speed, with ridiculous amounts of power and leverage at the other player. This leads to some rather gruesome injuries often if they hit each other the wrong way. So yes, while rugby players are extremely tough men who would never back down from a fight, the point of NFL football isn't just to beat each other up or prove you are the tougher man, but rather to quite literally hit the other person so hard that you kill him, or at least absolutely knock him unconscious. That intent, and the ability to do so with every hit, is why the helmets and padding are necessary. Even with the helmets, it is estimated that something like 10-50 percent of HIGH SCHOOL (14-17 year old) football players suffer major concussions, and they are nowhere near as big and violent as the NFL players.

[ohmelads]

I have often heard this argument about the speed or size of American Footballers, but it's missing the point. Do people think rugby players just jog around? Of course the different nature of the tackling is more dangerous and therefore the padding is absolutely necessary, but it is the mentality of rugby which sets it apart from other sports, it is a non-stop war of attrition (80 constant minutes) where bravery is everything and blood is always spilled (which is why you have what's called 'blood substitutions'). Violence and intimidation is part and parcel of it, and padding and helmets would take too much away from the game. It is a very different sport to American Football which, for all its dangerous head on collisions, seems a far more sanitised sport. It is more organised, there are referees everywhere, there is more communication, more stoppages and everything is analysed. It is true that a lot of rugby players consider American Football a girl's game because of the padding, but I don't think many people mean these comments seriously, it's just an easy windup which is bound to get a reaction. It is the constant stoppages that put people off American Football, I find myself sitting around waiting for something to happen. That's one of the reasons it won't ever take off over here IMO.

 

The Haka, Sipi Tau etc are a perfect example of the spirit rugby is played in, only a sport such as rugby could keep these traditions alive and famous. Any Americans who aren't sure what I'm talking about should do a youtube search for "New Zealand Haka VS Tonga Sipi Tau". Speed and size are irrelevant if you're not prepared to go up face to face with these guys, you have to expect violence. I challenge anybody to stand in front of the Haka and then say "knock his head off".

[Guest rebel_yell12]

Ohmelads -- I agree about the constant stoppages.  I remember commenting to a friend that you needn't be "match fit" to play American football.  You only have to play for ten seconds, then rest for ten to twenty, play for ten...so on. 

 

Now, time for an admittance.  I played American football, as part of a fundraiser event over here.  Rugby, for all it's gouging and stamping and getting the sh** stomped out of you in a ruck and the joys of the scrum (by the way, I was a prop) does not tackle anything like American football.  Gridiron is far more sanitized than rugby, now.  It wasn't when it developed, and people quite literally died on the pitch.  When university teams were the major teams going (early part of the 20th century) it wasn't uncommon for 20 or more of these 18-22 year olds to die, every season.  Helmets and pads were enforced to halt that trend -- and they institute new rules all the time to make the game even safer while trying to maintain the essence.  The intent in gridiron is to hurt people, and I've been tackled in rugby, the intent is to stop the forward flow of play.  Or at least it was for us -- we weren't World Cup players, by any stretch. Rucks and scrums hurt because of the set-up of the game, not because players truly wish to maim one another (they definitely consider it part and parcel of the sport, but less the intent, again, in my experience). Rugby is a long hard slog of being beaten about for the whole match and getting broken fingers, toes (I had both those), ribs, noses, cheekbones, etc.  plus a lot of bruises, scrapes, twists, sprains and blackened eyes and playing on.  That's how you earn your stripes, so to speak, in a rugby squad.  Yet, I have never heard of a rugger being paralyzed on the pitch.  That happened not two years ago over here in the NFL.  The player is a quadraplegic now.  That's proper scary.

 

I *have* stood in front of a haka, and I agree, no one would look at that giant Maori lad and say "knock his head off" because he'll just run over you.  Multiple times.  With great glee.  Still, I'll take playing rugby over American football.  I'll take all my broken toes and broken fingers and everything else.  I actually prefer rugby for the long hard slog, not the short bursts of sheer intentional violence.  It takes an entirely different sort of player.  I only brought up the original comparison because I see it so often by those who don't play American football (much like the rounders=baseball one from earlier in this thread).  Living over here, I must say that I refuse to take the piss out of American sports ever again.  In fact, I refuse to joke about any sport I've not played, because you can never appreciate it until you've played it properly. 

 

And to keep this even slightly on-topic -- Americans love "soccer", and most enjoy watching the EPL once they've been exposed to it.  I just don't think it can be exported in the "live" manner with any integrity to the league.  Seriously, try better television marketing, then worry about getting live matches over here.  Unlike gridiron in Britain where most people really haven't a clue of the sport, Americans know the basics of soccer.  Let them see the beautiful game as it's played in places like Serie A and the EPL...they'll only fall deeper in love.  Just remember that gaining the market isn't worth compromising the sport.

[Guest Li3nZ]

Ohmelads -- I agree about the constant stoppages.  I remember commenting to a friend that you needn't be "match fit" to play American football.  You only have to play for ten seconds, then rest for ten to twenty, play for ten...so on. 

 

Now, time for an admittance.  I played American football, as part of a fundraiser event over here.  Rugby, for all it's gouging and stamping and getting the sh** stomped out of you in a ruck and the joys of the scrum (by the way, I was a prop) does not tackle anything like American football.  Gridiron is far more sanitized than rugby, now.  It wasn't when it developed, and people quite literally died on the pitch.  When university teams were the major teams going (early part of the 20th century) it wasn't uncommon for 20 or more of these 18-22 year olds to die, every season.  Helmets and pads were enforced to halt that trend -- and they institute new rules all the time to make the game even safer while trying to maintain the essence.  The intent in gridiron is to hurt people, and I've been tackled in rugby, the intent is to stop the forward flow of play.  Or at least it was for us -- we weren't World Cup players, by any stretch. Rucks and scrums hurt because of the set-up of the game, not because players truly wish to maim one another (they definitely consider it part and parcel of the sport, but less the intent, again, in my experience). Rugby is a long hard slog of being beaten about for the whole match and getting broken fingers, toes (I had both those), ribs, noses, cheekbones, etc.  plus a lot of bruises, scrapes, twists, sprains and blackened eyes and playing on.  That's how you earn your stripes, so to speak, in a rugby squad.  Yet, I have never heard of a rugger being paralyzed on the pitch.  That happened not two years ago over here in the NFL.  The player is a quadraplegic now.  That's proper scary.

 

I *have* stood in front of a haka, and I agree, no one would look at that giant Maori lad and say "knock his head off" because he'll just run over you.  Multiple times.  With great glee.  Still, I'll take playing rugby over American football.  I'll take all my broken toes and broken fingers and everything else.  I actually prefer rugby for the long hard slog, not the short bursts of sheer intentional violence.  It takes an entirely different sort of player.  I only brought up the original comparison because I see it so often by those who don't play American football (much like the rounders=baseball one from earlier in this thread).  Living over here, I must say that I refuse to take the piss out of American sports ever again.  In fact, I refuse to joke about any sport I've not played, because you can never appreciate it until you've played it properly. 

 

And to keep this even slightly on-topic -- Americans love "soccer", and most enjoy watching the EPL once they've been exposed to it.  I just don't think it can be exported in the "live" manner with any integrity to the league.  Seriously, try better television marketing, then worry about getting live matches over here.  Unlike gridiron in Britain where most people really haven't a clue of the sport, Americans know the basics of soccer.  Let them see the beautiful game as it's played in places like Serie A and the EPL...they'll only fall deeper in love.  Just remember that gaining the market isn't worth compromising the sport.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0zi_uNcWmo

[Exiled in Texas]

Let's be honest - this is a non-starter of an idea. Playing a Premier League or Serie A game in the US isn't going to bring in any new fans, and may even cost MLS it's current fans.

 

If Man U played Arsenal in the US, the game would sell out because it was a novelty and you would have fans flying in from all over the country to watch that game because it would be the only way to see those teams/players live. But this game sells out in the UK - so whats the benefit of having it over in American.

 

Would people going to these games be new fans? Or are they already fans/players of the game?  I bet they already fans of the game either as they are either foreign nationals living in the US or they (their kids) play.  Would watching Man U play Arsenal make me want to watch FC Dallas play Real Salt Lake? ...... no chance.

 

In fact the more I got to watch top Premier League, La Liga or Serie A teams, the less I would care about watching my local team FC Dallas.  I go to a couple of FC Dallas games per year, but they have to be worth going to, to for me to make the trip.  I went to a preseason game where FC Dallas played Brazilian team Parana just because it was a team from Brazil.  Did I go to see FC Dallas play Columbus Crew or Real Salt Lake? No.

 

Now consider if the PL sent Middlesborough to play West Ham......bet that would look just like the Riverside with a half empty stadium.  So the Premier League won't let a big game go to another country. A low rated game wouldn't sell so they couldn't send that game. All youre left with are games which are Big team vs small team as possible and I don't see the top teams being that keen on promoting another countries league and risking points in their season due to the travel demands.

 

 

They should just continue to send European teams to the US for preseason games.

[Guest rebel_yell12]

Thanks, Li3nZ, for further proof that off-hand condemnation of sports is annoying.  I know Americans who used to think cricket was wimpy because it takes forever to play -- and then they had a cricket ball hit at them, and they changed their minds.  Sport is only one realm, it just aggravates me no end to see different countries' cultures slagged off with no understanding of the things being taken the piss of. 

 

Hey, Exiled in Texas -- at least you're in Texas.  I'm in f***ing Oklahoma.  I love my digital cable.  Because I can't stand the MLS to start with, I grew up on English football and it's just not the same quality.  But honestly, I think increased exposure to the sport as it is at its best (ie Serie A, EPL, La Liga) can only help Americans take on "soccer".  Every sport looks best when played by its finest athletes, and those aren't the MLS stars.  Also, letting young Americans know that there is some hope for a professional career in "soccer" could help the sport as well.  I know some young men who played "soccer" as a child, but switched to American football because they were more likely to get a college scholarship or a professional career in that sport.

[Exiled in Texas]

 

Hey, Exiled in Texas -- at least you're in Texas.  I'm in f***ing Oklahoma. 

 

Sorry Mate - You know why all the trees in Texas point north.....because Oklahoma sucks.  bad-dum-dum-Tsssshhhhh.  OKC or Tulsa? Sooner or Cowboy?

 

I know what you're saying about making the sport more accepted etc to the non-believers, but the challenge in the US is really to get fans emotionally invested in the MLS teams not get them into soccer.  There are plenty of people here who are connected to soccer and watch games religiously very week. The problem is that in the US, the only games they see are the ones which have their kids playing in them. It's building that link from watching their kids games to watching MLS games that is the challenge.

 

I think that the profile of soccer (and the lure of "What Could be") is as easily accomplished by more Top Teams coming to the US for preseason tours/tournaments as trying to get one EPL game into the country. Remember back in 2004 or 05 when they had the Tour of Champions - they had Milan, Celtic, Ajax, Manure, Arsenal, Benfica etc and they played 3 games each across the US.  Games in Seattle and  Hartford as well as the big cities like NY, Washington, Chicago and LA. 

 

It doesn't matter that it's preseason - it's still Milan vs Man U.  That Tournament was how to raise the profile of soccer - send the best and put it on display across the country.  Sending second rate teams for a regular season just won't work (and the big guys just won't come).

[ohmelads]

Another possibility is that they would move something like the Carling Cup Final over there, since it is always played in a neutral stadium anyway and it would be a big boost for the sponsors. Not advocating this by the way, but I could see pillocks like Magnusson pushing for it.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

Another possibility is that they would move something like the Carling Cup Final over there, since it is always played in a neutral stadium anyway and it would be a big boost for the sponsors. Not advocating this by the way, but I could see pillocks like Magnusson pushing for it.

  Yup, if he can get another Premier League chairman to side with him on the idea, then let the two of them push Scudamore to let them play against each other in the states.

 

As long as NUFC aren't involved, and stay at SJP, I'm happy.

[Guest rebel_yell12]

Exiled in Texas -- I agree with you, completely.  A pre-season tournament like that would be a very good idea.  If you really want to prosletize proper football to the Americans, you need to get them to professional matches.  And the MLS isn't *bad* per se, it's just not quite the teams I watched when I was young.  What I was really arguing for was a better television presentation of "soccer" -- both MLS and the Premiership -- to get the kids and their parents more aware of the possibilities for "soccer" futures.  You can watch baseball, the NFL, basketball, even ice hockey, on the regular channels, but soccer is either in Spanish or you have to have cable packages like I pay for. 

 

And I'm definitely a "Cowboy" if I have to have a label, because I live in Stillwater and work for OSU.  Hence being in Oklahoma.  It wasn't exactly my first choice location.  Where the f*** is Stillwater was more my reaction. 

[Guest TampaToon]

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/7374676

 

an American journalist's take on the London game

[Exiled in Texas]

No team will want to give up the sort of BIG home games that would be attractive in another market. 

 

NFL teams are franchises of the NFL, and therefore have to do what the NFL says - they have Owners meetings who decide on what they do.  And as Franchise owners they have a part ownership in the league, which is not true of EPL teams.

 

I don't think we'll ever see competitive EPL games played outside England.

[WarrenBartonCentrePartin]

 

I don't think we'll ever see competitive EPL games played outside England.

 

looks like we'll see the next best thing though....

 

 

http://www.teamtalk.com/football/story/0,16368,2483_2889052,00.html

[Decky]

Not sure how id feel if Newcastle made a USA club. Would be interesting supporting Newcastle teams in 2 leagues, but at the same time i couldnt watch the MLS

[Parky]

America is really not intersted in football and people just need to accept that and move on. This whole lark has been going on since the world cup was held there.

[Thespence]

America is really not intersted in football and people just need to accept that and move on. This whole lark has been going on since the world cup was held there.

 

I think in few years soccer will be USA's fourth sport as it will overtake the NHL.

[Parky]

America is really not intersted in football and people just need to accept that and move on. This whole lark has been going on since the world cup was held there.

 

I think in few years soccer will be USA's fourth sport as it will overtake the NHL.

 

How many sports do they have five?