American Football Overseas
Who would have ever thought that we would be playing American Football overseas? Well it's closer than you may believe, and from the opinion of many NFL football fans not a moment too soon. With the economy in shambles like it is, the potential for new revenue couldn't hurt....or could it?
Many Americans don't know this but American football has been televised in Europe since back in the 80s when the love for Football and throwing the "ole pigskin" was undeniable in the U.S. The original plan was to have foreign sites host preseason NFL games in hopes of sparking international interests in the sport, however they were not as successful as hoped. There were however the few loyal followers who still to this day worship the 49ers and the Redskins because of their success in that decade. But how could they really expect a preseason NFL games to rile up the testosterone overload of a true sportsman enough to want to watch and actually support one particular team?
The success of most American sports is due to the hometown heroes and the ability to possibly say "Hey, I went to school with him/her" or “we’re from the same state” they can't say that overseas, so naturally the sport will not be as popular. In countries where rugby and soccer prevail far and beyond American football, we need something to lure in the football fans. American football is most popular in Germany but barely ever televised there. What are we going wrong?
First of all we need to recruit and train players from different countries. This is the ONLY way to make American football a household phrase in any home overseas and get it close to the popularity of the NFL games here. It will establish that "hometown hero", and in the process generate a larger number of football fans. We also need to televise more than just those soft preseason NFL games. Show the regular season NFL games and reel them in with the no-nonsense brutality that they are used to seeing when watching their native sports like rugby and soccer.
American football has the potential of becoming really big overseas, with the popularity of American sports growing outside of America, but they must go about it the right way. No more NFL Europa (the first European football league, established in 1991), and no more preseason NFL games played in host cities. Let’s recruit some boys from local cities and train them to play the game, put them against another local city and see how the sport will blossom from a small seedling to a budding flower.
Imagine Berlin boys up against boys from Paris, or Arzberg against Dresden. People overseas don't support American football like we want because we have to be more consistent when introducing them to the sport. Don't start a new league for them, but incorporate Europeans into American football, make the teams more diverse and more accessible to other countries. Recruit and teach the sport overseas to boys starting as young as possible to hopefully instill a sense of pride and help them grow not only into strapping young lads but into blue blooded American football players.