Fulham's owner has put in a bid of £1 billion for Wembley Stadium, principally for American Football use. It's a bit rich the Ruperts owner having two stadiums and we're stuck at Loftus Road. Still, apparently Chelsea won't be able to use it during their rebuild so it has a silver lining... http://www.fulhamfc.com/news/2018/april/26/chairman-statement
I originally thought this bloke was a bit of a joke, but he has been patient with the Jaguars and they were excellent last year, and Fulham are the form team in the Championship. I thought the new Spurs ground was meant to host NFL games though, surely they don’t need two London venues. If this ****s up Daniel Levy’s Business Plan I’ll be delighted.
His statement says....."No matter what the outcome of our offer may be, I want to emphatically state to you that none of this will have any effect on my commitment to your Club. " I would not be happy with that wording if I was a Rupert
I think Wembley was privately owned before the new build. The FA has no special expertise in running a facility like this (it has little expertise in running anything) and this would allow it to pay off the £113m it still owes to the taxpayer and plough hundreds of millions into its core job, developing the game from the bottom up.
I think he has a long-term aim to bring an NFL franchise to London, the success of the limited number of games has not gone un-noticed across the pond and yes, I imagine Daniel Levy will be upping his blood-pressure medication. A proviso of the bid is that the stadium would be unavailable for football from September to December due to gridiron commitments, that would bring internationals back to regional stadiums, no bad thing IMO...
Does anyone remember what sort of crowds they got the last time american football had a team in London?
They always get a full house, as supporters of all the teams go, wearing colours, from all over the country. I’m not sure if it would be the same for more than the couple of games we get at the moment, might be too much, but I’m sure the marketing blokes have done the sums. We used to have the odd pre season game or demonstration match, but it has made a big difference having regular season competitive games. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Jaguars became a London franchise in the long run.
But their was an American Football team based here, the London Generals I think, not in the NFL but another league.
It was the World League of American Football with the London Monarchs based at Wembley. It lasted two seasons.
It used to be the London Monarchs, pronounced 'Moan-arks' in that very American way. They played in the 'European Conference' must've been in the 90s, I think there were teams from Barcelona, Frankfurt and even a Scottish team as well, mostly using players that couldn't get regular games in the USA. As Stan says I think Khan has been angling for an opportunity to set up in London, the Jaguars are the smallest team in terms of potential hometown support in the NFL, London would be highly lucrative as an alternative. You don't spend a billion just to put on a few matches here and there...
I think it’s the fact that it’s proper NFL teams playing to get to the Superb Owl that makes it popular. Having seen an NFL preseason game with two second or third string quarter backs playing it becomes painfully obvious that quality players is key to the entertainment, as is the desire to win. It’s like being offered the choice between a Champions League game and a Conference match.
The NFL office keeps putting on games abroad with the hope that local interest will catch fire. The games have been a big success from the league's perspective. The next logical step would be to put teams in London and Mexico City, where the reception has been great. Canadians in the Toronto area regularly cross the border to go to Buffalo Bills games even though they have their own football league, the C.F.L., with teams from coast to coast and one in Toronto itself. If Khan can move his team to London for less than buying an expansion team slot, it is a winning move for him. The Houston NFL team owners paid $700 million for their existence. A new expansion team would probably cost close to $1B now. Logistically, a London team would be a travel nightmare for that team, going to the States to play away games, and vice versa for visiting teams. It will probably never happen for that reason.
It’s no worse than a west coast team playing an east coast team in the States. Tougher the further west you get but with clever scheduling not impossible. I would imagine that the London based team would play away games in blocks of 3 or 4.
Completely viable. I believe that Rugby league has a team based in Canada that has been successful. So travel isn’t an issue - just sensible planning. It has become highly popular in UK. A tactical, physical, intelligent and exciting game - far beyond just padded kits. Good luck to him. As for our FA - pay your dues back to the tax payer; and rebuild our game outside of the premiership - there needs to be competition and opportunity for clubs like us to get paid properly for players that are stolen from lower division clubs by the PL. For example, we have some competitive games in the EFL, but we need to improve our quality.
The one thing that I have no idea on is does Wembley generate an income? If so what sort of income is generated? Is that going into football at the moment?
It does through the hospitality and Club Wembley, and obviously through the stadium cut of ticket sales/ venue hire for concerts etc. Khan is offering to let the FA keep up to £300m of revenue generated by Club Wembley over the next few years. I imagine that all income generated to date has gone to reducing/servicing the £750m debt caused by the cost of the build. I really can’t see the objection to selling as long as all the right guarantees for football are included in the contract.
Thanks for that, I've heard bits and bobs on the news, the usual jingoistic bollocks, nostalgia for what I can see is the name 'Wembley' lots of badly informed people who didn't have a clue that Wembley Stadium has only been owned in the last 10 years, and yet nobody seemed to be talking about the finances other than it cost this to build and it's looking to be sold for x amount. I wanted to know if selling was really a very short sighted decision or not.
