PalenQ

hah hah quite a chuckle touche

fnarf999

So it WASN'T a sellout, then, was it? The stadium wasn't full. "Registering on a website" is rather a different thing than forking out the actual cash. It sounds like 420,000 of those people found something better to do than to follow through for one of the 8,000 available tickets in the end.

PalenQ

NYT

" a 26-foot version of Dolphins defensive end Jason Taylor powered by a machine behind him stood, raised his arms, turned his head, blinked, winked and even walked."

Called big J.T. the big hot air player delighted London in various venues all week

"In Canary Wharf on Tues he handed our foam No 1 fingers "People are absolutely mad for them said an NFL hack

"At Victoria Station on Thur Big JT was surrounded by workers who passed out plastic holders for their Oyster Cards that promoted the NFL"

perhaps 8,000 seats were blocked off for security? Al-Queada threat?

alanRow

<<< game took 3 hrs 2 mins compared with approx Premier League soccer game of 1:45 >>>

But American football is 4 quarters of 15 minutes - what did they do with the rest of the time?

Presumably it takes that long to kit up the 53 members of the team and to sort out which of the 20 coaches is going to get the quarter time oranges.

waring

With the 300 players on each team, that's one hell of a lot of oranges.

PalenQ

"An 18-year old from Swansea looked as if he had arrived for an NFL casting call - rhys Clements traveled far to come to this game and his age fit every sponsor's target demographic and he wore a purple Minnesoata Vikings jersey

but it was the look on his face that should make NFL officials smile. His entire face was thick with paint. half was for teal, for the Dolphins, half was blue, for the Giants.

"I love the game. It's brilliant" he said

fnarf999

I don't care if you start enjoying our football, but if you start waving around those goddamn giant foam fingers, a little part of England will have died.

What's next, "homer hankies"? The Braves tomahawk chop?

PalenQ

well the Spurs could use the traditional of fans putting paper bags over their heads en masse to show how embarassing their teams are

waring

To fill the stadium, 0.13% of the population would have to turn up, that would be about one in 800 people, and they failed.

willit

Banter aside - I did try to watch some of the game, but to me, it seems incredibly disjointed. Every two minutes or so it was back to the studio where 3 men would discuss the intricacies of the previous plays.

I am presuming this is because the number of adverts on TV in the UK is strictly limited, and they had to fill the screen with something. I just lost patience. I think that I am more suited to edited highlights.

flanneruk

The New York Times said half a million requests arrived? So what happened to the other half million they were boasting about? In fact where's the evidence there was ever even one unmet request for tickets?

Just like the 95000 tickets the head honcho (apparently he's not a commissionaire. He's <b> The Commissioner </b>, and apparently runs Blouseball) claimed to have sold, when there were never that many seats to sell in the first place.

Facts are: they lied about how many tickets they'd been asked for,lied about how many they'd sold and ended up with at least 8,000 empty seats.

I think we can conclude they'll not be back again soon.

PalenQ

au contraire cher flanner

NFL is considering the Wembley affair a huge success and speculation is what two teams will play in London next year

and plans are to have every NFL team play one regular season match abroad - in europe, asia, etc.

Honestly i do not think NFL will fly outside U.S. given the propensity for soccer but they are really talking about a franchise in London, representing all of Europe. Jet-lag and time-lag problems are a damper however.

And i could care less really as NFL bores me too.

where2

It was clear to me the first time I watched the NFL on SkySports that Sky has a difficult time getting qualified Americans to base themselves in London to commentate on the NFL. This may be one reason why it is SOOOO boring to people who are new to the sport. These guys are dry and technical. Sometimes their special guest commentators are such a joke - like some university player's dad or something. The guys they use would NEVER get a job doing this in the States. So we Expats watch when our favorite teams play - and during the superbowl you can turn off the Sky guys and turn on the Americans.

PalenQ

soccer bores most yanks american football bores most limeys

it's all upon which you are brought up on

no one can say one game inherently is more boring than the other (though this could be said about baseball IMO)

American football is the only major sport played in America that does not have a significant following abroad and will remain that way despite attempts of NFL.

Soccer rules abroad and always will.

Cholmondley_Warner

This seems a fair reflection (by James Cracknell)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mai.../sogrid130.xml

alanRow

The pitch is now b*gg*r*d

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/mai.../sfnfro230.xml

fnarf999

From the sound of it the pitch at Wembley was buggered before they ever started. It doesn't have proper drainage, and it's just laid on turf, not bound to the soil. It's not like they didn't know it would rain in London in October.

English pitches are one of the wonders of the world; the average village green or Conference football club has better grass than any but the very best American baseball clubs, and no American has ever seen anything remotely like Lord's or Wimbledon in his own country. How could Wembley be such a mess?

PalenQ

Seems NFL's huge success in Wembley inspite of the mud has them seriously thinking of a London franchise

What would be a good name?

a- The London Fire?
b- Royals? (Perhaps too embarrasing?)
c- Monarchs? (ditto)
d- London Ravens (taken)
e- London Plague
f???

got any good nicknames for the soon to be London NFL team?

Jimingso

London Fog?

London Broil?

waring

The London Monarchs NFL Team have already come and gone.