yankee12 hat geschrieben:Actually, Barcelona got off to a solid start. The Dragons averaged 30,000 fans during their first 2 seasons only to drop to 18,600 and 15,300 in years 3 and 4. By comparison, the Amsterdam Admirals only reached 15,000 once during their existence.
Nonetheless the Barco Dragons were gone, while Amsterdam was still playing. As financial problems were given as the reason for moving the team from Barcelona to Cologne, maybe even though they had a greater crowd coming to the stadium in Barcelona, the costs were also a lot higher?
yankee12 hat geschrieben:Americans realize MLS is not as good as most leagues in Europe, South America or Mexico, but appreciate it enough to average 18,600 fans a game
Americans also get in their cars and drive hundreds of miles to go to a College Football game. Most europeans wouldn't do that - not even for their Soccer Hometeam.. Guess it's some cultural thing or so..
And then there's the financial aspect.
Just take a look at the GFL. For seats with a good view - between the 30 yard lines - You have to pay somewhat aroud 25,- to 30,- Euro in Braunschweig. I (!) never thought of that as being too much. But many people complain that it's too expensive. Even fans of the Lions. So quite a few people think it's too expensive to pay 25,- € to see a game of one of the best teams in the GFL. To see professional football teams playing in the same stadium, the prices would have to be much higher. Players would get better pay. Coaches and other staff personnel would get higher pay (and there'd have to be more staff, too...) and not the least there would have to be a higher expectation about the revenue from the NFL / owner of the team.
So the player would have to be playing better than one of the best GFL teams, just so the people wouldn't start complaing even if the tickets were costing just about the same.
NFL tickets in the USofA are priced a bit higher, than those for GFL games in germany, afaik. Like.. paying $ 100.- for a mediocre seat seems not outside of the norm, right?
I guess europeans would be ready to pay that much money once or twice a year to see NFL teams playing. But on a bi-weekly base? If the teams aren't as good as the "real" NFL teams? I don't think so...
yankee12 hat geschrieben:As for team locations, I'll give you Duisburg and go with Dresden ( a good regional rival for Leipzig). I'm not sure about Munich,though. Although there has been a GFL team there for years, is it popular ? The fact that the NFL never put a team or seriously considered a team ( based on what I have read) for Munich says a lot.
A long time ago there was an europe wide league of semiprofessional teams. I'm too lazy to look for details now, but there were teams from scandinavia, Berlin, Hamburg and Munich. The league wasn't that successfull financially, so it died...
Munich, like Berlin, offers a lot of competition for every kind of sportsteam playing there and hoping for a crowd. I'm not sure why the NFL didn't think they had a chance to have a successfull team in Munich. But I don't know why they seem to think they
have a chance to build a successfull NFL team in London somewhen in the future, either. Maybe they just don't really know the european market? Trying too hard to get the american way of business into a reagion, that is too diversified to accept that?
IMHO Munich would have as much chances as Berlin to build up a successfull professional football team. Or maybe not as much but as little a chance.. As I wrote: lots of competion entertainementwise to be found...
