Ninh explains – Why American Football doesn’t quite suck in the UK.
Oh no – you’re crapping on yet another sport.
Ooooh you’re misinformed get your facts straight – bitch please!
I did my research, maybe you should too.
Besides, most of the dislikes comes from the triggered fans who don’t like it when someone
makes an honest critique about their sport.
#offended But why is it that American Football doesn’t
quite suck here in the UK?
Especially given that ice hockey and basketball are infinitely more popular.
Before I explain, you know what to do – subscribe and hit the bell.
The reason why I’m giving American Football a pass here, is simply because they’ve barely
had a chance to play it.
Whilst ice hockey has been around for over 100 years and people can barely play it anywhere,
basketball has been around for over 100 years and is badly organized, and baseball has been
around for over 100 years and nobody cares.
American Football is different because it’s only been played in the country since about
1982.
They’ve had less than 40 years of actually playing the game.
Okay, there’s been some exhibition games played by US military stationed over here
– but largely before 1982 American Football wasn’t even a thing in the UK.
Nobody played it.
Nobody watched it.
Nobody knew a damn thing about it.
It’s a fairly recent phenomenon.
So, what happened?
Why 1982 specifically?
Back in the day, there were only 4 TV channels that were free to watch for everyone.
BBC One, BBC Two, ITV and Channel 4.
It was Channel 4 that started to show weekly NFL highlights.
This new strange brand of football, coupled with rising problems in British soccer, especially
with hooliganism, meant that popularity and curiosity of the American Football surged
in the coming years.
A lot of fans, including myself, became fans of the sport just from watching Channel 4.
With an increase in demand, came an increase of teams, and the British American Football
Federation and American Football League UK were formed.
Teams sprouted up all over the country and this was the start of the UK’s interest
in American Football.
Obviously, the playing standard was light years behind the Americans, but at least it
was a start.
Over the next decade, more people became interested in the NFL and more people were interested
in actually playing American Football.
But there was one thing plaguing it that is a common denominator of all these other sports
… lack of money.
Whilst big name sponsors like Budweiser became title sponsors for the league, that money
dried up pretty quickly and the costs of running the league spiraled out of control.
Without other big-name sponsors and no funding from the government (because it’s not an
Olympic sport) – teams either folded or never really progressed.
The league itself, went into liquidation.
By the late 80’s, all seemed lost and American Football was destined to become another niche
sport that fell on its face, in spectacular fashion.
They needed a generous benefactor, one that would inject life and interest back into the
sport.
Their prayers were answered, as the biggest benefactor of them all arrived onto our shores
… the NFL itself.
After playing an exhibition game in Wembley in 1986, between the Bears and the Cowboys
… Go Cowboys … the NFL thought to itself … hang on, we’re onto something here.
An untapped English speaking market, with a good fan base, they already know how to
play the game, they’ve got interest in participating, they have teams, they watch our league on
TV, and we make pretty good profits off them.
All they need is little startup money and the opportunity.
So why don’t we give it to them?
The NFL set up the NFL Trust in 1990 to develop the participation game further and a year
after in 1991, the World League of American Football was formed.
A league of international teams from the US, Canada, Germany, Spain and the London Monarchs
being the sole UK representative.
The first season was a huge success, with the Monarchs beating the Barcelona Dragons
in the first ever World Bowl, 21-0.
They played in front of 61,000 screaming fans at the old Wembley stadium.
British fans went nuts and really got behind the team.
Their success was proof positive that if you build it, and they’re successful, they will
come.
This is called ... the NFL effect.
By 1995, they added a second team, the Scottish Claymores based in Edinburgh Scotland, and
by 1998 the British American Football League was formed, finally giving the country a universally
recognized governing body for the participation of the American Football.
Structure, success and mainstream popularity.
What could possibly go wrong?
So far this video has been pretty positive, but you know this is where it goes south.
The WLAF, which was now rebranded as NFL Europe had its own share of problems.
I won’t explain the full story, as it’s coming up in a future video right here – but
in short, they made some pretty bad decisions that resulted in the demise of the Monarchs,
the Claymores and eventually the league itself.
As a spectator sport, Channel 4 stopped showing the NFL to the masses for free, which dulled
the mainstream interest, especially seeing as though the internet wasn’t really a thing
yet.
If you wanted to watch the NFL, you’d have to pay for Sky satellite TV – which nobody
did, just for as few American Football highlights.
And as a participation sport, the BAFL suffered from infighting with the BAFA, which had positioned
itself as the recognized governing body ahead of the BAFL.
To spite them, they actually withdrew from the BAFA .But sadly for them, the teams that
they govern didn’t share their opinion – effectively leaving them as an Football League managing
exactly zero teams.
That ultimately spelled their demise and since 2010, the BAFA now runs the sport here in
the UK.
By the mid 2000’s, with no NFL Europe, an alarming drop in spectator views thanks to
Channel 4 not showing games anymore, and participation numbers down because of teams going bust or
teams not agreeing with leagues and governing bodies … it seemed like once again, American
Football was destined to fall to a painful death.
And then the NFL stepped in again.
The NFL isn’t stupid.
Sure they’ve made some bad decisions in the past, but they’ve made enough good decisions
to make them the most profitable sports league in the world … by a mile.
They’re pretty convinced that they weren’t wrong about the UK, so in 2007 they came back
to London with the Giants and Dolphins – sell out crowd.
2008 with the Chargers and Saints … sell out crowd.
They’ve come back every year for the last thirteen years … all games, all sell outs.
They definitely weren’t wrong, the UK is an excellent market ripe for the picking.
Clearly the demand for the NFL is still there, you could argue whether it’s real British
demand or continental Europe demand, but one thing you can’t say is that it’s a novelty.
Because it’s not … it’s gone way past novelty and surely if it was, then the demand
would have died off by now.
But no – sell out, sell out, sell out.
They’re even playing more and more games here every year with the intention of possibly
shipping out a team here permanently.
Whether they will or not, is covered in some of my other videos.
And because of the NFL effect, the BAFA have had to pull their socks up.
They’ve had to be pretty organized because there’s a lot of towns and cities wanting
to form teams now.
They’ve had to create a structure, a hierarchy of teams and a progression system, very similar
to that of the USA.
And the teams themselves have had to pull their finger out too.
It’s no longer a bunch of guys who want to hit somebody on a field anymore.
They’ve got training regimes, diets, deals with gyms etc.
Even though it’s still an amateur sport, the participants train like pros.
Even Universities have caught on to American Football – with University teams competing
in the BUCS league – though this isn’t at all like the NCAA where students get free
education just for playing... not yet anyway.
The only thing really missing is a fully professionalized league with TV and sponsorship deals like
what the UK has for Ice Hockey and football, mainly because the standard isn’t good enough
to be televised.
But progress is fast and I wouldn’t put it past teams to become so good that they
could play professionally.
And to make sure that the sport doesn’t fall flat on it’s face for a third time,
the NFL have permanent offices in London that oversee their own training and performance
camps for talented individuals.
They realise that there’s a huge untapped market in potential players – especially
ex Rugby players – imagine a whole country full of players with transferable skills.
As well as ex soccer, basketball players and athletes who for some reason can’t catch
a break in their own sport, but are welcomed with open arms in American Football.
Some notable Brits now play in the NFL and I’m pretty sure we’ll see a lot more as
the years go by.
In short, American Football doesn’t quite suck in the UK because there’s a reason
why the NFL play in London every single year.
It stokes the fire that is the demand for American Football in country.
Will teams become good enough have a fully professionalized league soon?
Will the UK end up with its own NFL franchise?
Are Brits good enough to compete on an international level and be known for their American Football
rather than their native version of football?
Well the sport is still in its infancy over here and only time will tell, but I wouldn’t
bet against it.
I believe that American Football is the sleeping giant here in the UK.
If you’ve enjoyed this video, please be sure to like share and subscribe and let me
know in the comments section below what you think?
Ninh Ly – www.ninh.co.uk - @NinhLyUK