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The Italians do the same.
France rotate among African countries.
Yep. In classic âboiling the frogâ style, it will be incremental. If the League Cup were easier to schedule, it would probably be one of those. As it is, it will be a one-off initially, exactly as the NFL did in London. Prove the concept, prove the business case, then expand it and make it annual.
Plus the US has the fine âsocialism for billionairesâ tradition that will see cities otherwise strapped for cash to deliver public services lining up to compete for hosting rights. None of those pesky âstate aidâ rules to worry about.
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At this point Iâm honestly wondering how long FSG stick around.
While I fully appreciate they are completely at home operating in that US style market, they were also explicit in wanting the PL to be a level playing field. City have trashed that and could possibly tear the whole thing to shreds.
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I donât think FSG are likely to be leaders in this, despite the fact they have one of the easiest international fab bases to monetize (donât you love that word?).
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None of that is deterrent to the billionaires who run the game.
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Globally for sure, not so much in Liverpool itself where any ticket price increase is met with resistance.
Fundamentally I guess it comes down to whether they want to chase cash or trophies.
Yes, between resistance in Liverpool and a huge international audience that would pay far more, the temptation is fairly obvious - much more so than a Fulham, that would struggle to fill a big stadium overseas.
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The Jacksonville Jaguars are crap, but their London games are always sold out because NFL fans flock from all over Europe to see a live game. You see fans wearing shirts from all 32 NFL franchises at Wembley/Tottenham.
Unless they make Premier League games too commonplace in America, I would imagine a similar situation would occur there. It wonât just be Fulham fans at their games.
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FSG must spend a huge amount of money on transfers yesterday. They also must not do anything to raise additional income if it even vaguely affects the fans demanding money be spent. So what if we play a couple of games a season for a huge chunk of cash. Very happy to play 4 games a year in the US for a $100m world class DM.
Which 4, because you donât get to choose.
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Exactly. You can almost guarantee that itâll be the headline games, not matches against the minnows.
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To some extent, yes. First few will be a novelty. Jacksonville deliberately set about building an English fan base to build off that.
They tried to, but most European NFL fans have supported teams for years.
I actually think it will be the reverse, which has a host of problems of its own. I expect it will be smaller clubs with smaller stadiums more or less selling off their big club home games, which further distorts an already warped league.
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Yeah I was thinking the same. Imagine Luton being able to put a game against Liverpool or Man Utd in MetLife Stadium and sell out an 82,000 seater arena as a âHomeâ game. Probably make more money off one match than they do in stadium revenue all season.
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If MetLife only get one game per season, they sure as hell wonât want it to be a Luton one.
Of course, theyâll sell out regardless but there is prestige at play. And merchandising- how many Luton shirts would they sell?
But Wembley has been hosting bottom-feeder NFL games for a decade and not been too bothered about it. Theyâre not getting a Luton game, theyâre getting a Liverpool game (and Luton are there, whatever).
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Probably right in the thick of a busy schedule too 