Europe, UFL
The United Football League is looking at a long, slow climb to be able to compete head to head with the National Football League. This path is vulnerable to the machinations of a dominant entity controlling the largest and best markets, and which has flexed its muscles in the past to toss aside competitors. With the NFL occupying the best markets in the United States, this climb, if it is even possible, could take decades of toiling in small markets and smaller profits before they can fully compete freely with the NFL, but there is another way. The UFL brain trust has already mentioned their interest in foreign markets, and it is a very smart decision.
The internationalization of American football has been underway for decades. Organizations such as the International Federation of American Football, European Federation of American Football, and American Football Fans of Europe, which has a welcome presence here on the UFL Access Forums, have helped to spread love of the game across the world. There are clubs, leagues, or college programs available on all 6 populated continents and in at least 50 countries. Some of the most successful are ONEFA (Mexico’s equivalent to NCAA), the X-League in Japan, and the German Football League in Germany. Every 2 years since 2003, a World Cup event has been held for American football, and at World Games 2005, the American football invitational was the most heavily attended event. The NFL itself, even after closing NFLe, continues to invest in foreign markets with NFL Youth programs in Europe, Japan, China, Canada and Mexico.
Expanding into foreign markets to both take advantage and build on these efforts is a tremendous endeavor. It opens up an abundance of large and wealthy markets, as well as a new stream of television and radio contracts and advertising opportunities otherwise unavailable to the UFL. There are several foreign markets that deserve strong consideration, and have a solid history with American football.
The easiest way to expand into international markets is Mexico. Mexico has a long and rich history of American football with ONEFA and various semi-pro leagues dating back to the 1920’s. Before its closure, NFL Europe was the primary outlet for Mexican players, with at least 30 players making the circuit. Only two Mexican players have ever made it to the NFL, so Mexican players will certainly be hoping to find a place in the UFL if the UFL decides to accept non-NFL players.
The most talked about Mexican market is Mexico City of course. This is one of the four largest markets worldwide with around 20 million residents. It is extremely densely populated, which leads to the many problems related to overcrowding. Mexico City has a strong manufacturing sector and a healthy and growing service sector. The NFL has hosted several preseason games through the American Bowl series and a regular season game a couple years ago, all providing attendance of over 100,000 fans. There are however many problems with Mexico City, the foremost of which is crime. Mexico City has one of the highest crime rates in the world. Many crimes are unsolved due to rampant corruption in law enforcement, as well. Kidnapping is a major problem, but oddly murder is not. Mexico City has one of the lowest murder rates for large cities, about 1/5th that of Washington, DC, in terms of murder per capita. However, a team in Mexico City might have to contract a security company to protect players. On the positive side, the cost of living in Mexico City is low, so player saleries would be worth a lot more.
The other market - and a much safer one - is Monterrey. Monterrey has also hosted a couple of American Bowl series games with good results. Monterrey Tech has dominated ONEFA lately, and recruits US high school players for its team. The Monterrey metropolitan area is home to over 3.5 million people, and it is regularly recognized as one of the safest and richest cities in Latin America. Monterrey has a resilient economy centered on retail, with solid support from manufacturing. It is a very strong prospective market that could be easily integrated into the UFL.
On a European front, there are a multitude of markets large enough and wealthy enough to host a football team, but only a handful have a history of football. London, Barcelona, and Frankfurt seem to be the most promising by far. These three were the original markets for the World League of American Football, the precursor to NFLe. While Frankfurt is the only one of the three to have survived until the closure of NFLe, that league, at its end, is not a good indicator of how well these markets could do.
The NFL made many mistakes running NFLe. The two year layoff in 1993-94 was effectively a death knell for the league. That betrayal of trust created a lot of resentment in Europe, as did the form of the league when it came back. In 1999, Paul Tagliabue, former commissioner of the NFL, expressed his belief that the league suffered from resent over not only the layoff, but the subtraction of US based teams. “We pulled the rug out from under them,” he said about how the European fans felt. This effect is clearly shown by reviewing the attendance numbers at the games. Before the two year gap, all three teams showed strong attendance numbers with two year averages around 30,000. Those three teams lost 1/3rd or more of their fans when the league started again. This combined with a poor marketing strategy and a failure by the NFL to fund the teams for back office personnel doomed the league to failure. It is very clear the NFL’s emphasis was on player development and technology and rules experimentation with NFLe.
Concentrating teams in Germany proved a hard lesson as well. Germany was not able to support the five teams eventually placed there, and removing teams from the UK and Spain undercut some of the broadcasting contracts that were keeping the league afloat. Without the money from broadcasting, and with being unable to find enough markets in Germany to provide the attendance the league wanted, there was little choice available for the NFLe but to close shop. In addition, the fact that it was a minor league system with allocated players often being in starring roles hurt the league. By the last few years, nearly half the league’s players were allocated from NFL teams. It is always hard to market teams in leagues where there is no stability in personnel, especially when combined with lower quality players. This is readily evident in every sport that utilizes minor league systems, at least here in the US. A top level affiliate rarely has an attendance more than 1/3rd of the parent club. This is a major reason the US teams failed in the WLAF.
London is a huge area, with nearly 13 million residents. It contains a heavy percentage of the largest companies in Europe, the largest European stock market, and features around 50% of all banking activity. The per capita income in London is about twice what it is in most markets the UFL is looking into, and London has the 4th largest concentration of billionaires in the world, as measured in US dollars. The London area also produces almost 1/3rd of England’s gross domestic product. It also has a solid history with American football. London hosted several successful American Bowl series games, and this past season drew over 80,000 fans to a regular season game between the Giants and Dolphins. The NFL plans to play another regular season game at Wembley next year as well.
The London Monarchs 1991 season is a golden example of possibility. In the first year of professional American football in London, the Monarchs averaged around 40,000 fans per game. That season average was never topped by any team in NFLe in the 16 seasons that followed. When the league came back in 1995, the team was forced to move to White Hart Lane, where the pitch was too small to house a full football field. They moved to yet another new stadium at the end of 1996, and in the Monarchs’ final season in 1998, the Monarchs played in three different stadiums in different cities as the re-branded England Monarchs. They were an embarrassment to the concept of stability, and any team that bounced around like that would not succeed anywhere.
The Barcelona area houses 5.3 million people, and is a mecca of textile and fashion. The city of Barcelona itself is one of the most densely populated areas of the world, with around 15,000/km2. There’s a fair amount of wealth in the area, and it could easily support a team it builds an attachment to.
The Barcelona Dragons showed phenomenal support in the WLAF. Their attendance increased from 1991 to 1992, before plummeting after the two year layoff. Part of the problem in Barcelona was playing games on Saturday nights, prime shopping time in an area built on retail. Even NFLe officials contemplated moving games in Barcelona to Friday nights to accommodate that part of the city’s life. Instead of working to market the team to Barcelona itself, the NFL hammered out a deal with FC Barcelona for them to handle the marketing of the Dragons. FC Barcelona failed to be able to successfully market the Dragons and the team was scuttled in 2003.
The last of the big three European markets is Frankfurt. Like Barcelona, Frankfurt is home to about 5.3 million people. The economy of Frankfurt is heavily reliant on the banking and finance industries, with it being the headquarters for six of the ten major German banks as well as the European Central Bank, and the second largest European stock market. Frankfurt has a rich and full history with sports and Germany has a rich history with Americana, largely thanks to the military presence the US has housed there since WWII.
The Frankfurt Galaxy was the gold standard of NFLe. The Galaxy was near or at the top of attendance every season of the league, but even they suffered from the two year layoff, with attendance dropping by 2/3rds for the 1995 season. Over the years, the Galaxy was the only one of the original teams to bring fans back into the fold, however. Germany became the hotbed for football. Three of its five teams showed solid attendance numbers, and they as well as the league in general were showing growth in attendance figures when the league was dismantled.
There are, however, many problems with all the European markets. In general, it is far more costly to operate in Europe than in the US. The stadiums are quite inferior as well, lacking quality and quantity of revenue streams expected even of basic stadiums in the US. Combined these major shortcomings result in many European sports teams running at perpetual losses and effectively being controlled by its creditors and sponsors. This is very much a danger for a league that plans to be operating in the red for several years. The UFL would need to improve the stadiums to truly turn a profit in Europe, and Europe does not typically approve of publicly funded stadiums. However, the trend toward more US style stadiums is already underway. Several new basketball arenas will have improved revenue streams, and the stadium in Frankfurt was recently improved as well.
There is also the possibility that the NFL has soured the European fans on future league experiments. There was, and still is, an obvious amount of resentment over how the NFL handled their experiment. It would be imperative to show that the new league is different from the NFL. The UFL would need to be more committed and more active in marketing the teams. It would also be beneficial to put effort into developing and exploiting rivalries.
The other areas of the world to look into would be Canada and East Asia. Unfortunately, neither area is entirely realistic. While Canada has several promising markets, the Canadian Football League occupies all the major markets except Ottawa, which has been awarded a conditional franchise for 2010. Toronto is almost assuredly large and wealthy enough to handle teams from both the CFL and UFL, but the NFL is actively cultivating that market by dangling the Bills franchise, which has a large Toronto following. In East Asia, the only country with a developed interest in American football is Japan, with the X-league and college leagues as well as good attendance at the American Bowls held in Tokyo (however, the numbers flagged when the game was held in Osaka in 2002). These two areas are worthy of looking into down the line, but they are not appropriate for the first couple seasons.
There are a lot of wonderful international markets available to the UFL. Several of them already have an established interest in American football, with many others developing an interest. With a lack of available high powered domestic markets available due to the NFL monopoly, the international markets can certainly play a critical role in competing with the NFL for players and fans. The international markets will require more effort than the domestic ones, but the UFL attitude seems to be compatible with what would be needed in the immediately available markets. Being even moderately successful in foreign markets would add an air of legitimacy that even the NFL could not impugn. By actively seeking these markets, the UFL could quickly be operating in four of the worlds 20 largest markets (New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, and London), an unheard of occurrence for American based leagues.
Jason Gillow @ March 19, 2008
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very interesting but why no mention of Scotland
Hello? Berlin! huge stadium I can’t see why That isn’t a good idea. Plus I don’t see a mexican pro team in the future. Do you want to football to take on a political theme if worse come to worse?
Making the UFL international is great for American Football. It’ll popularize the sport just like Major League Baseball did for baseball or the NBA did for basketball. In fact, NBA comissioner David Stern addressed that he wants a NBA team in Europe in 5 years. Hopfully, the UFL would beat him to it.