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Jags 2 steps closer to London move


Zerovoltz

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24 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I live in London. 

So clearly we have a difference of opinion. 

 

For me, the backlash against the Jags is obvious. Previously at Wembley they got the neutral support, in the last 2 or 3 years that has clearly swung against them. This year the Jags game was a very one sided crowd against the Jags. 

 

Furthermore if you look at the NFL's UK social media. You see a huge and growing hostility. People are sick of having the Jags pushed on the UK fan base and told to love them. 

 

No doubt, since their 1st trip the Jags have benefitted from London. Having gone from a bottom 3rd supported team, to a fringe top 10. But they have reached saturation point, the marketing is causing more damage than good. 

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3 minutes ago, Mountain Man said:

So clearly we have a difference of opinion. 

 

For me, the backlash against the Jags is obvious. Previously at Wembley they got the neutral support, in the last 2 or 3 years that has clearly swung against them. This year the Jags game was a very one sided crowd against the Jags. 

 

Furthermore if you look at the NFL's UK social media. You see a huge and growing hostility. People are sick of having the Jags pushed on the UK fan base and told to love them. 

 

No doubt, since their 1st trip the Jags have benefitted from London. Having gone from a bottom 3rd supported team, to a fringe top 10. But they have reached saturation point, the marketing is causing more damage than good. 

 

Mine is a London centric view for sure. But I know lots and lots of Jags fans and they are not going anywhere. 

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36 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Mine is a London centric view for sure. But I know lots and lots of Jags fans and they are not going anywhere. 

I think that's the thing. There are as you say a lot of Jags fans. Probably top 10 best supported if you use the unscientific jersey count method. But I don't think we seeing the growth you did 5 years ago and certainly you are seeing a shift amongst neutrals. It's notable how now the Jags game is always the easy game to get tickets for

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6 minutes ago, Mountain Man said:

I think that's the thing. There are as you say a lot of Jags fans. Probably top 10 best supported if you use the unscientific jersey count method. But I don't think we seeing the growth you did 5 years ago and certainly you are seeing a shift amongst neutrals. It's notable how now the Jags game is always the easy game to get tickets for

 

I am not convinced on your shift among the neutrals point. Do I think the growth in Jags fans has slowed? Yes but that is inevitable. Your fastest growth is always going to be in those early years when you first introduce fans to it. I don't think many fans of other teams have converted to the Jags. But they have built a following in London of people new to the game in the last decade. 

 

The 2 game thing is a significant step forward. I have long thought that a team shared 50/50 between the east coast and London is a more realistic and immediate aim than a fully London based team. I think that is where the NFL is trying to go for the medium term.

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27 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

The 2 game thing is a significant step forward. I have long thought that a team shared 50/50 between the east coast and London is a more realistic and immediate aim than a fully London based team. I think that is where the NFL is trying to go for the medium term.

If they are both at Wembley it's a seriously risky move. It's risking a poor attendance. Spurs will sell out regardless, but 2 Jags games at Wembley given the Dublin game is risky. I know a number of people dumping London this year already because of the Irish game

Edited by Mountain Man
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21 minutes ago, Mountain Man said:

If they are both at Wembley it's a seriously risky move. It's risking a poor attendance. Spurs will sell out regardless, but 2 Jags games at Wembley given the Dublin game is risky. I know a number of people dumping London this year already because of the Irish game

 

Wembley will still sell out. 

 

Edit: just for some perspective... the highest London game attendance since the series began was for the 2019 Jags game. I see absolutely no evidence of a tapering off of Jags support. 

Edited by GunnerBill
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1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Wembley will still sell out. 

 

Edit: just for some perspective... the highest London game attendance since the series began was for the 2019 Jags game. I see absolutely no evidence of a tapering off of Jags support. 

Attendance figures are meaningless. Even if the seat is empty it counts as as attendee if they sell a season ticket for it. Touts lost a fortune on the Jags game as the tickets were selling for less than 10 quid on game day. They were struggling to give them away 

 

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1 hour ago, Mountain Man said:

Attendance figures are meaningless. Even if the seat is empty it counts as as attendee if they sell a season ticket for it. Touts lost a fortune on the Jags game as the tickets were selling for less than 10 quid on game day. They were struggling to give them away 

 

 

They are not meaningless to the NFL. It means the NFL has sold the ticket. Why do they care what the re-sale value to a tout is? 

 

Maybe you have picked up on an imminent backlash against the Jags that I haven't but at the moment all you can really base that on is your gut feeling and your anecdotal evidence. None of the evidence supports that hypothesis. 

 

I especially can't see people abandoning the Jags for Army v Navy in Dublin. 

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20 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

 None of the evidence supports that hypothesis. 

 

Yes it does. The resale ticket market was the worst its been in many years and the worst by far for any of the London games last year, as well as the Jags game being the slowest seller on initial sales

23 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

They are not meaningless to the NFL.

They are in the sense they have little relation to the number of people who actually attended 

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1 hour ago, Jaraxxus said:

Got a little bit of a UK slap-fight in this thread.

 

"I challenge you to a duel, sir!" *glove-slap*

 

Its a healthy debate. The NFL shut down their very successful UK forum last year because they'd rather fans sing the praises of London's Jay Ajayi on Twitter than actually discuss football 

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10 hours ago, Mr. WEO said:

 

Any proposed move to London would come well after the CBA was accepted and done.

 

 

 

 

My point was the player's union may make this a point of contention (not willing to accept overseas move or expansion) in the upcoming negotiations.  It's already been raised as a potential roadblock and playing in London not popular with players. 

 

"It would be a significant change in the working conditions in one of our teams, so that would require agreement with our players' union," Waller said.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25124631/how-close-london-getting-nfl-franchise

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Makes way more sense from an attendance perspective. The Bills could count on Pittsburgh and Cleveland fans filling in seats during lean years. It would also be a lot better from a rivalry perspective too as we could build that with Cleveland and Pittsburgh. I think the main barrier to the Bills moving out of the East was Ralph Wilson who liked the Miami rivalry even though it waned and doesn't have the meaning that it did long ago. I would be happy to have that realignment even though I would like to have New England in our division so that we can exact revenge on them for the last 17 year.

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19 hours ago, Zerovoltz said:

....so the Jags are playing 2 home games in London this year.  It's just the next step in them becoming the "London" Jags permanently. 

 

The reason why I posted it has more to do with Buffalo than London.  I saw somewhere on the internet that when/if the Jags do make the move permanently, there will be some realignment.  The NFL won't want the London Jags in the AFC south.  They will want them in the AFC east with flights to/from London out of Boston, New York and Miami.  The alignment I saw suggested that the

AFC EAST would be :

London

New York

New England
Baltimore

 

AFC SOUTH

Tennessee

Houston

Indy

Miami

 

AFC NORTH

Pittsburg

Cleveland

BUFFALO.

Cincinnati 

 

Would Bills fans accept it?  Would your new and closer division rivals be compelling, or would it be crap that you lose the Patirots/Jets/Dolphins as division rivals?

 

I can't help but think IF (I said IF...the word IF) IF it came to it....the owners would probably be able to make this happen.  I don't think Mike Brown has any kind of clout to stop it....and would think the if the Pegulas protested, they might not have any allies to prevent this.

 

Your thoughts?

I made my preferred changes in bold above. I like your general idea, but think this makes more sense geographically.  I left Cincy and Indy in their current divisions, but would be open to flipping them

Edited by BarleyNY
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2 hours ago, keepthefaith said:

 

My point was the player's union may make this a point of contention (not willing to accept overseas move or expansion) in the upcoming negotiations.  It's already been raised as a potential roadblock and playing in London not popular with players. 

 

"It would be a significant change in the working conditions in one of our teams, so that would require agreement with our players' union," Waller said.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/25124631/how-close-london-getting-nfl-franchise


I would imagine it wouldn’t be proposed until after the CBA sIgned and that the owners would not allow any wording that allows players to veto a move 

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6 hours ago, BarleyNY said:

I made my preferred changes in bold above. I like your general idea, but think this makes more sense geographically.  I left Cincy and Indy in their current divisions, but would be open to flipping them

 

But would Cincy be willing to flip

 

Moving the Bills to AFC North kicks one team out of the North

 

Pittsburgh and Cleveland want to keep their rivalry

Pittsburgh and Baltimore want to keep their rivalry

Cleveland and Cincinnati want to keep their rivalry

 

Do you break the Pittsburgh/Baltimore(former Browns) rivalry?

Do you break the Pittsburgh/Cleveland rivalry?

Do you break the Cincy/Cleveland Ohio rivalry?

Do you break the New Browns/Old Browns (Ravens) rivalry?

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