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Lions are moving to London

Z

zyxt9

Well-known member
Joined
Aug 3, 2011
Messages
7,162
The experiment of playing NFL games in London has been an incredible success and London is now negotiating with the Ford family about buying the team from them. They feel the mascot is a perfect fit for their history, from Richard the Lionheart to having Lions on the Royal seal for centuries.

The new London Lions will begin play no later than 2020, but could be sooner if Martha Ford, the current owner, passes away as the team has officially been included in her will to be transferred to London. The Fords will retain a small (estimates are 10-25%) ownership stake; however, London has said the Ford family will play no roll in the management of the team once the move is completed.

There is even some speculation that the deal could be done in 2016, if the team continues losing. Having the #1 overall draft pick and replacing upper management would make it an ideal situation for moving the team. London officials believe they have developed a strong enough fan base to support that possibility now that the Lions have played in London two consecutive years. The NFL decided years ago to explore the possibility of having a team move to London, and are very agreeable to the move from a city that has experienced a decline in population to one of the largest cities outside the US, and an ever growing fan base there too.
 
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zyxt9 said:
The experiment of playing NFL games in London has been an incredible success and London is now negotiating with the Ford family about buying the team from them. They feel the mascot is a perfect fit for their history, from Richard the Lionheart to having Lions on the Royal seal for centuries.

The new London Lions will begin play no later than 2020, but could be sooner if Martha Ford, the current owner, passes away as the team has officially been included in her will to be transferred to London. The Fords will retain a small (estimates are 10-25%) ownership stake; however, London has said the Ford family will play no roll in the management of the team once the move is completed.

There is even some speculation that the deal could be done in 2016, if the team continues losing. Having the #1 overall draft pick and replacing upper management would make it an ideal situation for moving the team. London officials believe they have developed a strong enough fan base to support that possibility now that the Lions have played in London two consecutive years. The NFL decided years ago to explore the possibility of having a team move to London, and are very agreeable to the move from a city that has experienced a decline in population to one of the largest cities outside the US, and an ever growing fan base there too.
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Source?
 
Buffalo would move to the NFC North and the London Lions would move to the AFC East. This allows London to have a rivalry vs the Jets and Dolphins, but more importantly will be the historic implications of London vs New England Patriots.
 
johnny2x2x said:
On the positive, I'd love to be able to watch the Lions play all their home games early Sunday morning, would give me the rest of the day.
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Very true, but at the same time it's way to early in the day to be yelling at your tv
 
I would be incredibly shocked if the NFL didn't have football in Europe by 2020.

However, I would be equally shocked if any team moved to London at all. That's not a sound business strategy for the NFL.

London is the gateway to all of Europe. You get a team there, Scotland and Ireland are a cakewalk, Germany already has professional American football and Hamburg would make an ideal drop for another team, and you can easily position yourself to a 4 team expansion in Europe right off the bat.

The end goal for the NFL is really to get rid of the AFC and NFC and have the North American and European conferences. You start by targeting similar cultures in the U.K. and then target where football has shown signs of success. Eventually Spain, Italy, and even France (because the French hate to be left out of anything the rest of Europe is doing).

The SuperBowl eventually becomes North America vs. Europe in a 64 team league. I would suspect there is a long play plan to move the Bills north into Canada to become a Toronto team, where football already has a following in the CFL, and potentially one other team moves into Canada.

It makes sense for a struggling market like Oakland to consider a move south into Mexico.

There's just no business sense to moving an NFL out of the United States, where the market is largest, into a developing market in Europe to try to grow. Expansion is a much more viable option. You retain your base market, you don't give it up.

That's just business 101 there.
 
inkfreq said:
I would be incredibly shocked if the NFL didn't have football in Europe by 2020.

However, I would be equally shocked if any team moved to London at all. That's not a sound business strategy for the NFL.

London is the gateway to all of Europe. You get a team there, Scotland and Ireland are a cakewalk, Germany already has professional American football and Hamburg would make an ideal drop for another team, and you can easily position yourself to a 4 team expansion in Europe right off the bat.

The end goal for the NFL is really to get rid of the AFC and NFC and have the North American and European conferences. You start by targeting similar cultures in the U.K. and then target where football has shown signs of success. Eventually Spain, Italy, and even France (because the French hate to be left out of anything the rest of Europe is doing).

The SuperBowl eventually becomes North America vs. Europe in a 64 team league. I would suspect there is a long play plan to move the Bills north into Canada to become a Toronto team, where football already has a following in the CFL, and potentially one other team moves into Canada.

It makes sense for a struggling market like Oakland to consider a move south into Mexico.

There's just no business sense to moving an NFL out of the United States, where the market is largest, into a developing market in Europe to try to grow. Expansion is a much more viable option. You retain your base market, you don't give it up.

That's just business 101 there.
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I'd be incredibly disappointed. We don't need Football in Europe especially with the toughest home field of them all. Traveling time will just kill it. And then Spain, Mexico etc - that just dumb. It's called American football.. The only reason Goodell would want it, just like a team in LA - money.

If there was one reason why I'd give up on the NFL it'd be NFL teams in other countries. We don't need that.
 
Mitchrapp said:
I'd be incredibly disappointed. We don't need Football in Europe especially with the toughest home field of them all. Traveling time will just kill it. And then Spain, Mexico etc - that just dumb. It's called American football.. The only reason Goodell would want it, just like a team in LA - money.

If there was one reason why I'd give up on the NFL it'd be NFL teams in other countries. We don't need that.
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You hit the nail on the head... Money.

The NFL is a business, not a sport. Football is a sport. The NFL is a multi-billion dollar a year business that wants to be a trillion dollar a year business.
 
boogerlovejoy said:
The NFL has to guarantee them their average home game take.....otherwise, nobody would want to do it.
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IMO, I think they deserve more because they don't have the home crowd. Hopefully they figure that in somehow though I doubt..
 
Theoretically the NFL is targeting enough places in Europe that they can change the NFC/AFC into the USFC and the winner of the USFC championship would then play vs the winner of the EFC.

They MIGHT have one game per year where the USFC teams travel to play the EFC and vice versa; however, to contemplate having teams travel multiple times across the pond is crazy.

Of course, Goodell IS crazy...so there is that.
 
zyxt9 said:
Theoretically the NFL is targeting enough places in Europe that they can change the NFC/AFC into the USFC and the winner of the USFC championship would then play vs the winner of the EFC.

They MIGHT have one game per year where the USFC teams travel to play the EFC and vice versa; however, to contemplate having teams travel multiple times across the pond is crazy.

Of course, Goodell IS crazy...so there is that.
Click to expand...

You're sort of right. Travelling across the Atlantic Ocean is brutal on teams, so there is really only one way to do it and make it work.

You need to have multiple teams in Europe so that you can pull it off, but you go back to the 18 week regular season experiment they tried a few years back with every team getting two bye weeks.

Bye week... travel across the ocean... bye week.

Now players have plenty of rest to shake off jet lag in between travel sessions.

I travel nearly half the year for business, and it's doable. You need one day for every time zone change. If you are a west coast team travelling to London, you are changing 7 times zones. 7 days of rest will straighten you out completely.

Going bye travel bye gives teams time to travel, rest, practice, return, rest, practice.
 
cheeno said:
You guys are making the mistake of evaluating a future scenario without taking into account technology as a variable. Flight time from the east coast to Europe in 2020. 1 hour.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...irbus-files-plans-for-new-supersonic-jet.html
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That only resolves a small piece to the puzzle. Jet lag due to different time zones is a much bigger piece to contend with. Not to mention the $$$$$ to fly that fast will be cost prohibitive to do frequently, but even that is not as big a challenge as the jet lag. Much better to keep the travel minimal with maybe one game played across the pond per team. That's going to require at least a 16 team league in Europe, but 32 would really be required unless they have 3 conferences and one of them gets a playoff BYE while the other two play.
 
No way they get a whole new league in Europe. And all be involved in the draft? "Man, I just got drafted by Istanbul." Lol.
 
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