On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 9:36 AM Adam Bowie <[email protected]> wrote:
> > > On Thu, Oct 29, 2015 at 1:51 PM, Joe Hass <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> To pivot this slightly, what the NFL has yet to do is put a game in >> London that would (in theory) be a moderately compelling match up. In the >> 14 games played as part of the "International Series", this was the first >> year where a intradivisional game was played (Jets/Dolphins). Nine have >> been interconference. >> >> And with Jacksonville (the one team that needs to be relocated but isn't) >> in one game for each of the next five years, I don't see that trend >> changing soon >> >> > Surely that's because they wouldn't dare to remove a big game from a > side's home schedule and take it to London? Given that an NFL side only has > 8 guaranteed home fixtures a season, it's quite a move to give up one of > those ties. > > Indeed if the boot was on the other foot, and I was told that this season, > Arsenal v Man United was going to played in New York, I'd be really upset. > I mean *really* upset. And we get 19 home ties a season for Premier League > football. > > It's actually for this reason that I no longer go along to any of the > London games. It doesn't seem fair to home fans of sides playing that > they're deprived of a home tie. > > Now it'd be a different case if the Jaguars became a London side, > something that is off-mooted. But I'm not convinced the numbers stack up > yet. Never mind the logistical challenges of stacks of transatlantic > flights with jet-lag, and kick-offs that could never be anything but 2pm > EST games or earlier in the US. (We did enjoy the fact that Miami brought > it's own toilet tissue with it this year!) > > For starters, they have to work hard to sell out these games, and they're > not quite doing that. Wembley holds 90,000 seated. They close off a few > rows at the front for NFL fixtures, but there were definitely empty seats > on Sunday. And that's despite having "fan rallys" in Trafalgar Square and > closing off Regent Street. I get the NFL UK emails and there are always > tickets available. > > A smaller stadium like Spurs' new one, a possible site for future NFL > games, would help, but it's not as though we're short of sporting > opportunities in London. > > Finally, a note on the UK transmission of Sunday's game. It was live on > Sky Sports as most NFL games are - they effectively had four games back to > back for most of Sunday. But it was also live on BBC Two which is free to > air. I strongly suspect that the NFL gives very favourable rates to get BBC > coverage. It promotes the sport. Anyway, BBC Two ran its own graphics > package alongside the regular (CBS?) commentary team. Switching between Sky > and BBC coverage you could see the two. I believe sports graphics are > effectively data + CSS-style display information, and the BBC chose to use > it's own display format. The only bit they couldn't seem to do was the > clock, so it was old school camera-pointed-at-stadium-clock and in vision. > If there are any screen grabs you have of the BBC package, I'd love to see it. As for the unfairness of losing a home game, here's my top-of-the-head solution: * Take all divisional pairings where both teams have >=.500 records * A team that makes the playoffs is exempt from losing a home game, so eliminate any pairings where both teams made the playoffs. * The lowest attendance by combined percentage of the two teams goes, and the lowest attendance loses the home game Using the 2014 schedule (asterisk indicates a playoff team). AFC East: NE*, BUF, MIA AFC North: None (all teams with winning records made the playoffs) AFC South: IND*, HOU AFC West: DEN*, KC, SD NFC East: DAL*, PHI NFC North: None (all teams with winning records made the playoffs) NFC South: None (no one had a winning record) NFC West: SEA*, ARI*, SF (the Seattle/Arizona pairing is discarded) Of the 10 pairings, the worst was Buffalo/Miami, with a combined percentage of 185.1. Buffalo had the lower attendance, so they lose the home game. This gives an incentive to the fans to show up to the games This obviously doesn't guarantee a high-quality game, but you at least get one game on the board that has a higher level of importance. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
