Alex Ferguson ponders the implications of the Jacksonville Jaguars becoming London's inaugural NFL franchise
Will London beat Los Angeles to having its own team?
Last Updated: 12/11/14 12:20pm
I was lucky enough to attend the NFL game at Wembley Stadium on Sunday night, watching as the Jacksonville Jaguars were stomped by the Dallas Cowboys.
Jacksonville were awful, failing in every almost facet of the game. They were awful at tackling, awful at offense, and to really cap it all, awful at special teams, too. It wasn’t frustrating. It wasn’t just horrible. Horrible would have been polite. It was horrific.
And then my mind wandered: What happens if the Jacksonville Jaguars are London’s team of the near future?
Wembley Stadium – as it has been for every game the NFL has put on since 2007 – was packed. And while there were more Jaguars shirts than we expected, the ratio had to be 2:1 for the Dallas Cowboys.
When a team is on offense, the opposition fans usually start screaming to confuse opposition quarterbacks and make it incredible difficult (and in Seattle’s case, sometimes impossible) for a quarterback to give directions to his team.
Wembley Stadium – as it has been for every game the NFL has put on since 2007 – was packed.
Alex Ferguson
At Wembley, it was quite opposite. Dallas was getting the noise and the roars when they made the big plays and seemed to more often than not end up in the end zone.
Now, imagine if a team like the Jacksonville Jaguars became the London Jaguars. Fans would come to Wembley – Jacksonville’s new home – and it wouldn’t be a special occasion anymore (we wouldn’t have the wonderful Joss Stone singing every afternoon).
It wouldn’t have the feel of an International Super Bowl. Fans would either be there to see the visiting team win, or have to suffer through Jacksonville losing.
And while the fan-base would fill the ground in the first year amid words like “hope” and “joy”, a team who could never win at home or win at all would get very old, very quickly.
The crowds that flooded Wembley for the NFL games would flood Wembley Way by half-time if they were season ticket holders, fed up with seeing a team who couldn’t pass, couldn’t run, and couldn’t tackle. No-one wants to see a laughing stock.
Even if there are a good amount of US ex-pats and corporate visitors will attend in season one, will they really come along with a continuing abomination in seasons two and three?
The City of Angels
And then I started thinking: What about a team in Los Angeles? Why on earth does the City who used to have two teams now have none?
LA has often struggled with its NFL teams. Both LA Rams and LA Raiders’ ownerships were hurt by apathetic fan-bases who didn’t want to watch bad teams – particularly in stadiums that weren’t exactly easy on the eye.
I will make no bones about it: Los Angeles has to have a NFL team. Los Angeles is one of America’s biggest cities, housing over 12 million people. It is also one of America’s biggest tourist destinations, thanks to Hollywood, Disney and the beautiful weather and beaches. It already has pretty good NBA franchises in the Clippers and the Lakers, as well the LA Kings (NHL) and both the LA Dodgers and LA Angels. All four could reach the play-offs in their respective divisions (although right now the Lakers are indeed struggling, despite having Kobe Bryant). But there is no NFL team. I can’t understand it.
Apparently, the noise about LA having a team is getting, ahem, a little noisier. Apparently Stan Kroenke, the owner of the St Louis Rams (remember him, Arsenal fans?) already owns 60 acres in Inglewood, a suburb of LA, and he’s been having conversations with local politicians about the possibility of moving the team. The 60 acres is plenty of room to build a stadium – and the all-important parking lots (LA has terrible transport links). There have also been conversations with the Oakland Raiders about the chances of moving, too.
The NFL owners have to allow a team to move to LA. Why? Big TV money. When the next NFL TV deal comes around in 2022, and the NFL has a successful team (or a least a team which fills the ground), the NFL can ask the domestic TV networks for another, much bigger deal than the $39.6bn they are already tied into. LA wins because the local fans- and the tourists – will love to go and see the local team, and spend a lot of money, bringing in the tax dollars.
In short, everyone will win. Apart from London.
