Post by Gene on Oct 26, 2007 14:55:52 GMT -5
Lovely jubbly
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
October 26, 2007
LONDON – The end of the world as we know it officially arrived at the Landmark Hotel near Regent Park, as a large gathering of very powerful business leaders in dark suits coalesced to talk about the globalization of sports in the 21st century.
Kicking off a conference sponsored by The Economist, sleep-deprived NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell – fresh off a middle-of-the-night conference call to assess the status of the San Diego Chargers' scheduled home game in a fire-stricken region – stepped to the podium in an ornate ballroom and told the assembled movers and shakers, "The focus of our international strategy now is to present the NFL to the widest possible audience."
Then, to underscore his point that American football must move beyond its designation as America's Game, Goodell cobbled together some Bob Dylan lyrics: "Your old road is rapidly agin' … you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone … ."
Whoa – Roger that. I half expected to see Mike Myers, dressed as Austin Powers, emerge from the crowd, slobber all over his crooked teeth and intone, "Behave, baby!"
Translated into the King's English, what Goodell's words mean to the American sports fan is this: Sunday's game at Wembley Stadium between the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins is only the beginning, the equivalent of the Beatles' 1964 foray to the States that spawned the British Invasion.
That also means – brace yourselves – that Goodell wasn't just blowing London fog when he said earlier this month that he was intrigued by the idea of staging a Super Bowl across the pond.
You'd might as well start calling it the IFL, because it's becoming increasingly clear that the new national pastime is no longer ours to hoard.
"If you want to grow something, you've got to share it," Mark Waller, the NFL's senior vice president of sales and marketing, said Thursday during a break in the conference. "Once this takes root here, and it will, people are going to expect to see the best, in the same way that you know the World Cup is the ultimate for soccer and the Olympics is the ultimate for track and other sports. If (the Super Bowl) travels, it makes you part of what the world is today, which is truly a global community."
In other words, when it comes to future Roman numeral fests, say hello to London and goodbye to Jacksonville.
And to that I say (with a major assist from Yahoo! colleague Martin Rogers), "Lovely jubbly."
Before I give you my reasons for supporting Super Bowl UK, rest assured that Goodell, Waller and I aren't the only ones thinking this way. "I'm in favor," said New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who attended the conference along with many of his peers. "It's the next frontier."
Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga agreed, saying, "If the league decides to come here, I think it would be well-received. It's part of the whole globalization thing we're talking about here today. I don't know how the other owners feel about it, but I think it's a good idea."
Though Cowboys owner Jerry Jones later expressed a dissenting viewpoint, it's clear momentum is building toward the exportation of the Ultimate Game in the not-too-distant future. Following the demise of NFL Europa this summer after a decade-and-a-half of precious little impact, the league refocused its branding strategy, with the Dolphins-Giants game its acknowledgment that discerning fans don't want to be bothered with anything less than the real thing. That it sold out the first 40,000 tickets in 90 minutes was evidence that this was not an unsound strategic shift.
Waller envisions a setup in the near future in which each NFL team, rather than give up a home date (as Miami did this year), plays a 17-game schedule that features one contest staged outside the U.S.
Eventually, Waller says, we could even see an entire four-team division in Europe.
"If I tried to imagine what the world will be like 20 or 30 years from now, I wouldn't want to say that anything's impossible," Waller reasoned. "In the same way it was unthinkable in the '80s that there would be a European Champions League in soccer, people now can't conceive of something like (a Europe-based NFL division)."
Of all the global strategies being contemplated, the one that most readily raises the ire of Americans is the thought of "losing" the Super Bowl.
Here are some reasons why I think playing a Super Bowl in London would be (again with help from Rogers) the dog's bollocks:
• London ain't Jacksonville. Not to pick on the Super Bowl XXXIX host – well, OK, I do mean to pick on it, like I always do – but London has everything a Super Bowl city needs: a lovely, modern stadium; the infrastructure and scope to handle the nightlife, the parties and the day-time crush of tourists in bad T-shirts and ball caps; centralized entertainment and shopping districts with plenty of hotel space; and a quick, efficient public transportation system. It's a bigger, better New Orleans that way.
• I don't buy the arguments against it. People will tell you that playing the game abroad deprives some poor U.S. city of loads of revenue, and my rebuttal is, "So what?" Is it the NFL's job to prop up the Detroits of the world, or can the league make a decision in its best overall marketing interests? Besides, don't believe the hype: The NFL half-promises future Super Bowls to citizens of cities facing ballot initiatives which guarantee sweetened deals for new stadiums, using this as the carrot after implicitly wielding the stick (don't vote for this and you'll lose the team, likely to Los Angeles). Another argument against going overseas is that the Super Bowl draws working-class fans of the competing teams, and they won't be able to afford a trip to London. That may be true for some fans, but not most of the people I see during Super Bowl week, who are paying $500 or more per ticket and seem to have plenty of disposable income. This isn't George Mason reaching the Final Four and a bunch of starving students hopping on Greyhounds; the typical Super Bowl fan, in my anecdotal experience, tends to be Joe from Sales on a company-approved junket, and he'll probably fly to London as readily as he will to Phoenix.
• How provincial can we be? Yes, we're the country that brought you "Freedom Fries" a few short years ago, and now we're unwilling to throw a bone to the Brits ? These were the hardy, brave souls who, every night during World War II (and long before the U.S. joined the fray), turned off their lights and took a pounding from the Nazis and refused to blink. I can't think of a better country with whom to share our greatest sporting spectacle.
Along those lines, I have this sneaking suspicion that bringing the Ultimate Game to a place with so much history couldn't help but raise the awareness of at least some Americans. And yes, I'm talking to you, Channing Crowder. On Wednesday, the Dolphins linebacker told the Palm Beach Post that, until the previous day, he hadn't been aware that people in London speak English. If Crowder was kidding, and I can only hope he was, it was a hell of a gag.
"I couldn't find London on a map if they didn't have the names of the countries," Crowder said. "I swear to God. I don't know what nothing is. I know Italy looks like a boot. I know (Redskins linebacker) London Fletcher. We did a football camp together. So I know him. That's the closest thing I know to London. He's black, so I'm sure he's not from London. I'm sure that's a coincidental name."
Nice theory, Channing, except that there are many black people from London, including Marvin Allen, who happens to be a wide receiver on the Dolphins' practice squad. "He's from London?" Crowder asked. "I heard him talk, and I thought he had a recorder and was just mouthing."
If I had my way, we'd all open our mouths – and our hearts and arms – and sing the words popularized by Michael Stipe, an enlightened American who gained international acclaim.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
By Michael Silver, Yahoo! Sports
October 26, 2007
LONDON – The end of the world as we know it officially arrived at the Landmark Hotel near Regent Park, as a large gathering of very powerful business leaders in dark suits coalesced to talk about the globalization of sports in the 21st century.
Kicking off a conference sponsored by The Economist, sleep-deprived NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell – fresh off a middle-of-the-night conference call to assess the status of the San Diego Chargers' scheduled home game in a fire-stricken region – stepped to the podium in an ornate ballroom and told the assembled movers and shakers, "The focus of our international strategy now is to present the NFL to the widest possible audience."
Then, to underscore his point that American football must move beyond its designation as America's Game, Goodell cobbled together some Bob Dylan lyrics: "Your old road is rapidly agin' … you better start swimmin' or you'll sink like a stone … ."
Whoa – Roger that. I half expected to see Mike Myers, dressed as Austin Powers, emerge from the crowd, slobber all over his crooked teeth and intone, "Behave, baby!"
Translated into the King's English, what Goodell's words mean to the American sports fan is this: Sunday's game at Wembley Stadium between the New York Giants and Miami Dolphins is only the beginning, the equivalent of the Beatles' 1964 foray to the States that spawned the British Invasion.
That also means – brace yourselves – that Goodell wasn't just blowing London fog when he said earlier this month that he was intrigued by the idea of staging a Super Bowl across the pond.
You'd might as well start calling it the IFL, because it's becoming increasingly clear that the new national pastime is no longer ours to hoard.
"If you want to grow something, you've got to share it," Mark Waller, the NFL's senior vice president of sales and marketing, said Thursday during a break in the conference. "Once this takes root here, and it will, people are going to expect to see the best, in the same way that you know the World Cup is the ultimate for soccer and the Olympics is the ultimate for track and other sports. If (the Super Bowl) travels, it makes you part of what the world is today, which is truly a global community."
In other words, when it comes to future Roman numeral fests, say hello to London and goodbye to Jacksonville.
And to that I say (with a major assist from Yahoo! colleague Martin Rogers), "Lovely jubbly."
Before I give you my reasons for supporting Super Bowl UK, rest assured that Goodell, Waller and I aren't the only ones thinking this way. "I'm in favor," said New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who attended the conference along with many of his peers. "It's the next frontier."
Miami Dolphins owner Wayne Huizenga agreed, saying, "If the league decides to come here, I think it would be well-received. It's part of the whole globalization thing we're talking about here today. I don't know how the other owners feel about it, but I think it's a good idea."
Though Cowboys owner Jerry Jones later expressed a dissenting viewpoint, it's clear momentum is building toward the exportation of the Ultimate Game in the not-too-distant future. Following the demise of NFL Europa this summer after a decade-and-a-half of precious little impact, the league refocused its branding strategy, with the Dolphins-Giants game its acknowledgment that discerning fans don't want to be bothered with anything less than the real thing. That it sold out the first 40,000 tickets in 90 minutes was evidence that this was not an unsound strategic shift.
Waller envisions a setup in the near future in which each NFL team, rather than give up a home date (as Miami did this year), plays a 17-game schedule that features one contest staged outside the U.S.
Eventually, Waller says, we could even see an entire four-team division in Europe.
"If I tried to imagine what the world will be like 20 or 30 years from now, I wouldn't want to say that anything's impossible," Waller reasoned. "In the same way it was unthinkable in the '80s that there would be a European Champions League in soccer, people now can't conceive of something like (a Europe-based NFL division)."
Of all the global strategies being contemplated, the one that most readily raises the ire of Americans is the thought of "losing" the Super Bowl.
Here are some reasons why I think playing a Super Bowl in London would be (again with help from Rogers) the dog's bollocks:
• London ain't Jacksonville. Not to pick on the Super Bowl XXXIX host – well, OK, I do mean to pick on it, like I always do – but London has everything a Super Bowl city needs: a lovely, modern stadium; the infrastructure and scope to handle the nightlife, the parties and the day-time crush of tourists in bad T-shirts and ball caps; centralized entertainment and shopping districts with plenty of hotel space; and a quick, efficient public transportation system. It's a bigger, better New Orleans that way.
• I don't buy the arguments against it. People will tell you that playing the game abroad deprives some poor U.S. city of loads of revenue, and my rebuttal is, "So what?" Is it the NFL's job to prop up the Detroits of the world, or can the league make a decision in its best overall marketing interests? Besides, don't believe the hype: The NFL half-promises future Super Bowls to citizens of cities facing ballot initiatives which guarantee sweetened deals for new stadiums, using this as the carrot after implicitly wielding the stick (don't vote for this and you'll lose the team, likely to Los Angeles). Another argument against going overseas is that the Super Bowl draws working-class fans of the competing teams, and they won't be able to afford a trip to London. That may be true for some fans, but not most of the people I see during Super Bowl week, who are paying $500 or more per ticket and seem to have plenty of disposable income. This isn't George Mason reaching the Final Four and a bunch of starving students hopping on Greyhounds; the typical Super Bowl fan, in my anecdotal experience, tends to be Joe from Sales on a company-approved junket, and he'll probably fly to London as readily as he will to Phoenix.
• How provincial can we be? Yes, we're the country that brought you "Freedom Fries" a few short years ago, and now we're unwilling to throw a bone to the Brits ? These were the hardy, brave souls who, every night during World War II (and long before the U.S. joined the fray), turned off their lights and took a pounding from the Nazis and refused to blink. I can't think of a better country with whom to share our greatest sporting spectacle.
Along those lines, I have this sneaking suspicion that bringing the Ultimate Game to a place with so much history couldn't help but raise the awareness of at least some Americans. And yes, I'm talking to you, Channing Crowder. On Wednesday, the Dolphins linebacker told the Palm Beach Post that, until the previous day, he hadn't been aware that people in London speak English. If Crowder was kidding, and I can only hope he was, it was a hell of a gag.
"I couldn't find London on a map if they didn't have the names of the countries," Crowder said. "I swear to God. I don't know what nothing is. I know Italy looks like a boot. I know (Redskins linebacker) London Fletcher. We did a football camp together. So I know him. That's the closest thing I know to London. He's black, so I'm sure he's not from London. I'm sure that's a coincidental name."
Nice theory, Channing, except that there are many black people from London, including Marvin Allen, who happens to be a wide receiver on the Dolphins' practice squad. "He's from London?" Crowder asked. "I heard him talk, and I thought he had a recorder and was just mouthing."
If I had my way, we'd all open our mouths – and our hearts and arms – and sing the words popularized by Michael Stipe, an enlightened American who gained international acclaim.
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
