Dolphins / Giants

[pjohns]

Very happy, got my tickets for this huge event later this year, Dolphins/Giants at Wembley in London in October

Cant believe some websites thought it might not sell out, first batch of tickets went on sale this morning and theres been a huge demand, 200,000 people registered !

[Mike]

For the Dolphins????

[pjohns]

Not a fan of either (Raiders fan) but want to support the event in the UK, the first batch of 40,000 tickets sold out in 90 minutes. Should be a great event in October

Proper NFL regular season game, no crappy preseason thing

[portland]

how many seats in wembley for a footballl game? don't they squeeze, like, 200,000 in for Spice Grls concerts?

[pjohns]

I wouldnt know about Spice Girls concerts ! The sooner a meteroid falls from space and squishes them the better

It holds 90,000, obviously for a concert you have tons of people on the field as well but 90,000 for the game this year should be good

[portland]

90K is a huge number, even for the NFL. where are your seats, so we can look for you in the stands?

[pjohns]

Ha ha dont think you'll see me ! I'm just so glad its been so well received over here. I'm even near the 50 yard line so the seats will be pretty good (cost a fortune !). Thats one thing that has annoyed me, the prices have been very high, my ticket is 70 pounds (about 130 dollars). Normally for soccer games or other events the tickets arent that dear

[portland]

that's a bit much, but NFL tickets -- even here -- aren't cheap. heard anything about more games in the future?

[pjohns]

Well theyre talking about adding a 17th game for international types of games but i'm not so keen on that. So used to the record books having 16 week seasons, a 17th game would change a ton of records.

Apparently next year the Chiefs might play in Germany against possibly the Saints. I think its only fair Germany gets a game as their fans are very passionate and loyal, NFL Europe has 5 of 6 german teams and they always get a good following

[portland]

germans love football -- any idea why? and why did NFLE fail in the british isles? chiefs coach herman edwards' mother is a native-born german, so they'd have a human interest hook.

[pjohns]

Well there used to be tons of american bases in Germany so there were loads of american troops around, hence baseball and american football were popular.

Because of the first ever American Bowl (Preseason game) between Chicago and Dallas in 1986 a ton of amateur teams and leagues started up in the UK, american football was first shown on a new channel back in 1982 and grew a large following as it was so new to us.

So in the 80's it got very popular, preseason games did well then crowds started waning as people wanted 'real' football not preseason games.

WLAF (NFL Europe) was a great idea back in 1991, the crowds in Europe were huge, American werent so keen on the whole. They suspended it after the 1992 season which hurt the league as fans got fed up, came back in 1995 with an all europe format which was a good idea.

However crowds werent huge compared to 1991 (50,000 at Wembley stadium) but the ironic thing is there are a lot of good NFL allocations in NFLE now whereas in the old days (1995 etc) it was mostly FA's.

Now theres too many ! Theres a lot of ex NFLE/WLAF players who play in the NFL though, they dont often publicise this enough. If used right NFLE is excellent, if a team sign 5 players before the deadline as they have to and send them over then dont expect miracles. If used properly teams like KC (Dante Hall etc) do well out of it