I suspect The Jaguars will play there in the future. He'll get a foothold in London before any other NFL franchise. Hardly an earth shattering opinion...but heh.
"Wembley Stadium set to be SOLD by FA in astonishing £800m deal"
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I once shared a hotel with Scottish Claymores. They were all yanks, well extremely big yanks. Very polite though, all the time.
it's about time they brought England back up north, plenty of decent sized stadiums for them to play at.
It will be funny to see them fail with this nfl bollocks, this country for the most part has next to no interest in it.
It will be funny to see them fail with this nfl bollocks, this country for the most part has next to no interest in it.
It can be worth more and he's confident in his vision and the NFL's vision...especially if they are able to redevelop the land around Wembley, which can use the redevelopment from what I remember.
Khan wouldn't do this if he knew full well what were the possibilities and he has established the relationships and reassurances that his vision can come true. He's a very, very, very smart and driven individual.
I don't see how the fa can sell it, not when it was partially funded by tax payers, if they get away with that I want to sell my landlords flat.
Is this a sexual act?
It's not that straight forward if you look at it. I mean there are more Americans into soccer (they call it) now. PL also not followed just by local, but other part of the world. Same with match attendance made up by tourists. If they can integrate the NFL to English football teams, then they can play their way offer deal like free NFL ticket as bundle with PL, Championship football season tickets. You know how season ticket work. You may lose right for other games if you opt out some games. Not all will be hooked, but some would. With time it grows. The tigher the bond between the NFL team and their football counter part, the more fan for both side of the two sports if they play the cards right with tribalism. So profit comes in with more worldwide fan for NFL.
It would be interesting to see what would happen with an NFL team in London. I'm not into the sport anymore but I was in the 90s and even played a bit of flag football.
From what I understand it sells out when it is in London but I don't think that guarantees that it would should a team move permanently. I believe I'm right in saying that fans of the sport in general go to the games that are on now, not necessarily fans of the teams who are actually playing. It's an occasion. It wouldn't necessarily continue once some of the novelty wore off if London got it's own team and more regular games. Of course, people may become loyal to London's team if it got one, but on the other hand it might actually turn off those who already had a team in the USA unless they were playing against London.
It's not just British fans they'd be trying to attract, but it would be Europe's NFL side too, based in the nearest part of the continent to the US that would be realistic to have a team. Pretty sure you get a number of people from all over the continent at these NFL games in London, with a strong contingent from Germany.
From what I understand it sells out when it is in London but I don't think that guarantees that it would should a team move permanently. I believe I'm right in saying that fans of the sport in general go to the games that are on now, not necessarily fans of the teams who are actually playing. It's an occasion. It wouldn't necessarily continue once some of the novelty wore off if London got it's own team and more regular games. Of course, people may become loyal to London's team if it got one, but on the other hand it might actually turn off those who already had a team in the USA unless they were playing against London.
It's not just British fans they'd be trying to attract, but it would be Europe's NFL side too, based in the nearest part of the continent to the US that would be realistic to have a team. Pretty sure you get a number of people from all over the continent at these NFL games in London, with a strong contingent from Germany.
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It will be weird for the FA to not own the stadium, technically England could be left without a stadium which seems crazy.
Didn’t we pay almost £800m to build the thing? why sell it.
Didn’t we pay almost £800m to build the thing? why sell it.
Fully expect any sale will include a lengthy 'lease' for things such as England internationals, cup games, and everything else Wembley currently does, guaranteeing they'll still take place at Wembley
From the new owners point of view why would you want to stop all those events that presumably will make up the bulk of your income?
From the new owners point of view why would you want to stop all those events that presumably will make up the bulk of your income?
Yeah feck NFL, it’s shite.
I want England games at Old Trafford, St James Park and Villa Park. Atmosphere is always far better.
Scrap the FA, sell Wembley.
England should be a travelling circus.
England should be a travelling circus.
already is
The games attract fans from all over Europe though. Thats all the franchise needs, asses on seats and a hard sell to sponsors.
Is this Wembley stadium really iconic? It's a lovely stadium of course, but it's just another modern stadium if you ask me.
If it meant the fa cup semi's stopped being at wembley and England games went around the country again I'd be all for it.
There will be a novelty factor for awhile if an NFL team does come to the uk but that’ll fade in time...free tickets or not.
There’s just not enough demand for it over here. Either way like I said I’m not bothered about the nfl team. I’m just happy England may play away from London for a change.
I’m with you. They should have kept the towers from the old one at least
I don't mean novelty of newness. I meant exposure. If the mass kept being exposed constantly, then eventually some would get hooked. Then it's phase 2 to build proper fanbase worldwide. You should realize for the mass who watch football, self claim fan of X, Y, Z clubs... many is not die hard football fan! As they can come with football by following trend, they can get hooked to NFL stuff. While we can care less about these, businesses want their money.
NFL isn't very newbie friendly though. You can sit someone who hasn't watched football before in front of a game and he's going to pick up on it very quickly. Definitely not the same with the NFL. The occasional game works because it's an attraction and it'll be challenging to turn that into a more regular thing and maintain the interest. Not impossible, but not easy either.
But it's all speculation that he's bought it for an NFL franchise. It could just be a business acquisition. Opportunity to make money.
But it's all speculation that he's bought it for an NFL franchise. It could just be a business acquisition. Opportunity to make money.
The old Wembley was owned by a private company (Wembley plc).
A large chunk of the money, some of it public/lottery money, was used by the FA to buy them out, just to knock it down and build what is the current Wembley.
Manchester's rival bid at the time and which would have used where the Emptihad is now, was a far more viable option.
But hey we are talking about the FA now...
I don’t think the FA would get involved in employing all these coaches, but rather training them to let them out to coach in schools, clubs etc. I forget the figure, but I remember it’s some thing like 30k to get qualified to the top coaching level. That 350 million could train around 12k coaches. However, given economies of scale, schemes whereby some of those coaches must commit to training more etc., I think you could leverage it to 20k coaches. That’s around the level where we need to be. It’s frankly only chronic underinvestment that put us in this position.
Consider an alternative question: would you swap Wembley for a football system in this country where we would be perpetual contenders on the world stage (think Brazil, Argentina, Germany, even Italy and France to a degree). I would, in instant.
Oh, and that’s just the initial 350m net, not even considering the extra 300m.
Pardon me if I'm not impressed with vague claims about improving grassroots footy. The FA have just refused permission for the amateur game to extend their seasons even though clubs up and down the country are playing 3 or 4 games a week to get the games in before the FA deadline. They can't even support grassroots when it costs nothing.
I don't really buy that. It's the same as when we were stuck on that loop of pretending Manchester/Birmingham had any chance of winning the Olympics. The national stadium really had to be in the country's only real 'attraction' city, for reasons that go beyond sport. Yes Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle etc all have concerts and events but London is a far, far bigger draw and the location allows for demand of higher prices too. Would have cost more to build but an Adele concert at an 90,000 seater stadium in London will earn you far more than an Adele concert at anywhere else in the country.
The allure and economic significance of London is irrelevant when it comes to decisions like where the national stadium should have been built was always going to be important.
It was mooted that Utd (prior to the expansion) were to move into it after the Commonwealth games. A 100,000 all seater stadium it would have been instead of its current 50,000. What better use would there have been from a sporting perspective.
Also the agreement at the time Wembley won it, was to make it a football, athletics and rugby league stadium with a view to using it for the London Olympic bid. What happened there then? More public money wasted... sorry spent on the Olympic stadium. Like I said Manchester's was a far more viable option of building a brand new stadium on unused public not private land.
I know Tom Brady. Odell something? And a Beckham Jr and thats me done
It's not, but the sports mechanism allows plenty for commercial opportunity and side entertainment which the investor really put effort into. Tourists, non sport enthusiasts, young people easier to blend into NFL game atmosphere than a football game. Cheerleaders' role. Remember we're talking about England where there is problem with stadium atmosphere.
With NFL game, I feel even the home team got thrashed, as neutral the atmosphere is still engaging. With football, you know when the home fan leave early, it's not far from the ideal for neutral fans.
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Go ask any football fan in the world what "Wembley" is.
Wembley's biggest problem are those bloody seats near the tunnel that are 90% empty for the first and last 10 minutes of every bloody half of football. It looks awful and tin-pot. Positioning it directly opposite the hard camera makes important, high profile games look as if they're being played in near empty stadiums.
Clearly, he is an extremely intelligent businessmen.
But that doesn't mean he can't make a wrong call. They all do.
I cannot for the life of me fathom how anyone thinks an NFL team in London is going to be some sort of cash cow that would pay for this sort of deal.
It will NOT pick up mainstream popularity. Sure, it doesn't need to to be successful. But for 8 home games to pay for a stadium that doesn't currently pay for itself with many more than that... I don't see it.
The NFL London team idea will be utterly underwhelming in terms of the financial, societal and sporting impact they are hoping for.
I've been to a few NFL games. The atmosphere is pretty dire. It's slow. Stop-start.
A problem with stadium atmosphere in England? Any football match I have been from the conference up to the PL has a way, way better atmosphere than an NFL game. Did you actually mean that??
Sure the stadiums are great and the band is a spectacle. But that's about it most of the time.
I am talking on average. I will kindly leave City out of this. We have whole thread discussion about our stadium atmosphere in lower profile game where supporter ain't up to it, citing the football on display, tourism taking over the stadium...
Being neutral going to game of team who have nothing to fight for, compare to dead beat NFL game, my experience put the NFL above.
Edit: to be clear, I am talking about neutral friend atmosphere of the lower profile game. It's clear these offshore NFL is more of promotional campaign, which aim to be neutral friendly to exposthe sport to people. For neutrals fans, having little to none understanding of the history, culture of the teams compete in the match; NFL game is more engaging new comer than same low profile game of English football game
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Im seeing alot of pro "NFL London team" rhetoric. Ill trade you the Jaguars for roughly their equivalent (4th place), Spurs. We will call them the San Anton.. er Dallas Hotspurs! Fair trade as "football" is becoming very popular in both countries. Any objections?
New Wembley is shit anyway, nothing at all like the original.
Sky are claiming that most of the money will be reinvested into grassroots football to open up 1500 pitches, that will allow the youth to play for free, and not have to pay to play on a 4g pitch, if true, this is a no brainer.
The image of England, the whole naming rights thing is such a trivial thing in comparison.
The image of England, the whole naming rights thing is such a trivial thing in comparison.
They simply give the taxpayers their money. Same principle as RBS' sale.