NFL Europe is Dead, Long Live the NFL in Europe
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by user JasonO
The World Bowl title game drew close to 50,000 fans just last week, but it was not enough to save the 16 year NFL development league in Europe. Originally started as the World League, NFL Europe consisted of six teams, many whose rosters were made up of second and third team NFL talent aiming to prove themselves to their coaches back home.
Despite a growing fan base, ESPN.com reported that the league was losing 30 million dollars a year. It wasn't surprising that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell explained this move as a "business decision." Generally speaking, losing 30 million dollars a year is not good business. But Goodell assured NFL Europe fans that the NFL will not leave them for good. In his announcement, he said "from now on we will focus on regular-season games and use new technologies to make NFL more popular worldwide."
So the NFL Europe is dead, but the NFL still has plans to build a presence there. Going from a league of six teams complete with a title game, down to just a handful of regular season NFL games a year seems like an odd way to build (or even maintain) league loyalty in Europe. But it is evident that Goodell's desire is to develop a worldwide fan base for the 32-team NFL, and not for any secondary leagues with the NFL name in them.
The NFL Europe was responsible for some good talent over the years, including Kurt Warner, the St. Louis Rams quarterback who also played in the Arena Football League. When I first heard the announcement, I was a little sad that the NFL Europe would be no more. Then I remembered I had never watched a NFL Europe game for more than a few minutes, shrugged, and clicked over to another sports article.
(a brief note about the author JasonO: JasonO is Jason Opdyke, an avid football fan, a less-than-avid writer, and founder of and contributing developer to SearchQB.com, THE football search engine.)
