Well, it's good news for San Francisco fans in britain - the team looks well set to play in one of the Wembley games this year. Who will be their opponent? Well since Philadelphia are on the schedule, they are less likely than Dallas to go to Wembley on the basis of their lack of a Jerry Jones-style egocentric character, so my money is firmly on Denver.
New Orleans
Tampa Bay
Denver
Oakland
Arizona
St. Louis
Seattle
Philadelphia
As New Orleans and Tampa have already played in Europe, and the Raiders are a rival team. the only logical choices are the Eagles and Broncos. Of course, this is assuming the 49ers are the home team, as I believe they will be...
Showing posts with label Wembley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wembley. Show all posts
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
Monday, 30 June 2008
Report: NFL has tickets of mass destruction, but only for 90 minutes.
The league announced yesterday that 15,000 extra tickets that went on sale last week sold out in just 30mins. Coupled with the 40,000 sold in May, this means that the vast majority of tickets available publicly have now been snapped up for the San Diego Superchargers @ New Orleans Saints @ Wembley game this October. You can expect a very small final sale of any confiscated or unsold tickets as we head towards the home stretch.
We have one gripe with the league on this one, and that was the original claim that those 40,000 tickets sold out in just 90mins. Whilst we are right behind NFLUK's efforts to promote the London series, and we'll come out and say it right now:
It's questionable at best.
If 40,000 tickets went on sale at 10am, and were sold out by 11:30am, then why were we able to buy tickets at 12:30pm?
The NFL released a further 5000 tickets sometime on the 29th May. If that is the reason, then it is interesting that tickets were still being sold at around 22:30pm on that night, according to many customers. Some have expressed the feeling that because the extra tickets were not publicised as well, people were not trying to buy the extra tickets, but that doesn't make any sense at all, and here's why:
Consider that between 11:30am and 22:30pm, just 5000 tickets were sold. Many fans purchased multiple tickets too, so, to put a conservative estimate on it, around 2-3,000 people bought tickets in a 12hr span, during which the NFL sent out emails to all members, and released a press statement at 1pm.
It's that fact that makes us doubt the original claim of 90mins. If that was the case, why, then, were we able to purchase four on a whim, after the 90mins, but before the extra 5000 were released? We imagine that there were plenty of people who did likewise, and forums were inundated with people
What annoys us most about this, is that there is no shame in selling out your ticket allocation over the course of a whole day. The sport is thriving in Britain, and frankly, the ability to pretty much guarantee that you'll sell all available tickets is all the NFLUK team need to be able to present to the NFL when they make their case to host a third consecutive game next season.
We think that this is a carefully planned strategy by the NFLUK marketing team to exaggerate popularity and convince those in two minds about purchasing tickets to splash the cash. Again, we really don't want to knock the NFL, nor the chances of the UK staging future games, but it's important to retain integrity and honesty - especially with the fans.
We have one gripe with the league on this one, and that was the original claim that those 40,000 tickets sold out in just 90mins. Whilst we are right behind NFLUK's efforts to promote the London series, and we'll come out and say it right now:
It's questionable at best.
If 40,000 tickets went on sale at 10am, and were sold out by 11:30am, then why were we able to buy tickets at 12:30pm?
The NFL released a further 5000 tickets sometime on the 29th May. If that is the reason, then it is interesting that tickets were still being sold at around 22:30pm on that night, according to many customers. Some have expressed the feeling that because the extra tickets were not publicised as well, people were not trying to buy the extra tickets, but that doesn't make any sense at all, and here's why:
Consider that between 11:30am and 22:30pm, just 5000 tickets were sold. Many fans purchased multiple tickets too, so, to put a conservative estimate on it, around 2-3,000 people bought tickets in a 12hr span, during which the NFL sent out emails to all members, and released a press statement at 1pm.
It's that fact that makes us doubt the original claim of 90mins. If that was the case, why, then, were we able to purchase four on a whim, after the 90mins, but before the extra 5000 were released? We imagine that there were plenty of people who did likewise, and forums were inundated with people
What annoys us most about this, is that there is no shame in selling out your ticket allocation over the course of a whole day. The sport is thriving in Britain, and frankly, the ability to pretty much guarantee that you'll sell all available tickets is all the NFLUK team need to be able to present to the NFL when they make their case to host a third consecutive game next season.
We think that this is a carefully planned strategy by the NFLUK marketing team to exaggerate popularity and convince those in two minds about purchasing tickets to splash the cash. Again, we really don't want to knock the NFL, nor the chances of the UK staging future games, but it's important to retain integrity and honesty - especially with the fans.
Saturday, 21 June 2008
UK TV Coverage
With the 2008 NFL Season only months away, information on the UK coverage has started to appear.
Of particular interest to those without access to Sky Television will be the news from The Associated Press that the October Regular Season game from Wembley will be aired, live, on the BBC. According to the report, coverage will start on BBC2 and after two hours switch to BBC3.
The BBC also have the rights to air Super Bowl XLIII live from Tampa, Florida and recently announced a permanent interactive sports service on digital TVs (believed to be part of "MySportNow" which, according to a speech back in November by the BBC's Director of Sport, Roger Mosey, will be "one of the BBC's biggest investments in the next five or six years"), a service which could, foreseeably, be used to cover NFL News.
Away from the BBC, this little snippet from OFCOM, updated on the 17th June, seems to indicate the NFL Network already have a license for a "cable and satellite channel". NFL Network coming soon to the UK?
Channel Five seem to still have live Sunday and Monday night football (as they did for the 2007 season), and Sky will presumably still show all the games it can via Red Buttons everywhere.
Of particular interest to those without access to Sky Television will be the news from The Associated Press that the October Regular Season game from Wembley will be aired, live, on the BBC. According to the report, coverage will start on BBC2 and after two hours switch to BBC3.
The BBC also have the rights to air Super Bowl XLIII live from Tampa, Florida and recently announced a permanent interactive sports service on digital TVs (believed to be part of "MySportNow" which, according to a speech back in November by the BBC's Director of Sport, Roger Mosey, will be "one of the BBC's biggest investments in the next five or six years"), a service which could, foreseeably, be used to cover NFL News.
Away from the BBC, this little snippet from OFCOM, updated on the 17th June, seems to indicate the NFL Network already have a license for a "cable and satellite channel". NFL Network coming soon to the UK?
Channel Five seem to still have live Sunday and Monday night football (as they did for the 2007 season), and Sky will presumably still show all the games it can via Red Buttons everywhere.
Friday, 20 June 2008
LaDainian joins the BBC's NFL love in.
While Reggie Bush has been in almost every news outlet during the last few days here, LaDainian Tomlinson (You know, the guy who justifies his contract?) has also been interviewed by the BBC's Tim Love
Getting past the usual schtick about looking forward to experiencing the London nightlife, LT does reveal one difference between the Chargers and the two teams who played last year. 'I can tell you now we'll be here from Monday Morning', Tomlinson told Love. Compared to the Giants and Dolphins, who both appeared on the Friday of game week, this perhaps shows one of the lessons learned by the two east coast teams regarding acclimatising to the British weather.
One other factor could be that both teams have road trips that make it simpler to catch a direct flight to London. Certainly for the Chargers (who are in Buffalo) it couldn't be any further from home, so going home to San Diego would be a ridiculous trek. The Saints are in Carolina, and even without any explicit confirmation, we'd expect the team to go straight to London.
Getting past the usual schtick about looking forward to experiencing the London nightlife, LT does reveal one difference between the Chargers and the two teams who played last year. 'I can tell you now we'll be here from Monday Morning', Tomlinson told Love. Compared to the Giants and Dolphins, who both appeared on the Friday of game week, this perhaps shows one of the lessons learned by the two east coast teams regarding acclimatising to the British weather.
One other factor could be that both teams have road trips that make it simpler to catch a direct flight to London. Certainly for the Chargers (who are in Buffalo) it couldn't be any further from home, so going home to San Diego would be a ridiculous trek. The Saints are in Carolina, and even without any explicit confirmation, we'd expect the team to go straight to London.
More from Reggie...
Reggie Bush must be exhausted. Fresh from his interviews with Radio 1 and Talksport radio, he has been on BBC TV apparently singing David Beckham's praises regarding a potential NFL career. Bush and Beckham filmed an advert for Adidas together last year.
'He was er... fast!' Reggie points out regarding Beckham's physical skills. Some of us may not remember his speed as his greatest attribute, but fair enough. His kicking? 'He nailed a 60yd field goal... I told him if his soccer career doesn't work out he can come and play kicker for us' says Reggie, a budding General Manager.
He also describes some Saints fans as 'disappointed' with the team losing a home game at the expense of the Wembley adventure. We can understand where they're coming from, even if (for purely selfish reasons) we're glad they've decided to.
We'll have something from LT, who is also over here promoting the game, soon.
'He was er... fast!' Reggie points out regarding Beckham's physical skills. Some of us may not remember his speed as his greatest attribute, but fair enough. His kicking? 'He nailed a 60yd field goal... I told him if his soccer career doesn't work out he can come and play kicker for us' says Reggie, a budding General Manager.
He also describes some Saints fans as 'disappointed' with the team losing a home game at the expense of the Wembley adventure. We can understand where they're coming from, even if (for purely selfish reasons) we're glad they've decided to.
We'll have something from LT, who is also over here promoting the game, soon.
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