40,000 tix sold for London NFL Game

[Livinginthe past]

For those hoping that the NFL won't pursue its plan of enlarging the season to 17 games and having every team play one game abroad this doesn't look like good news.

NEW YORK (May 16, 2007) -- The game is still five months away, but fans in the United Kingdom can't wait.

The first 40,000 tickets made available for the NFL's first overseas regular-season game on Oct.28 at Wembley Stadium in London between the Miami Dolphins and New York Giants sold in 90 minutes. The tickets were available to fans who were randomly selected from an overwhelming number of registered ticket requests. More than half a million requests were received within 72 hours of the NFL's announcement of the game in February.

"Today's first sale was exclusively to fans in the United Kingdom and Europe," said Alistair Kirkwood, managing director of NFL United Kingdom. "The speed in which such a large number of tickets were snapped up through our partners at Ticketmaster demonstrates the great excitement and appetite for the game in this country. We know that the last few tickets available in this first batch will be gone very soon."

Sales in the United States to Dolphins and Giants fans are expected to begin within a week, with additional tickets being released to fans in the United Kingdom next month.

"Those who missed out this time around have the opportunity to be selected to participate in the next sale," said Kirkwood. "This experience proves to us that fans will have to be quick to secure the remaining seats.

"This is a game for hard-core fans from all over the world. It will be unique to any regular-season game because it is an opportunity for fans of the sport on a global basis to meet up and celebrate the game. Obviously the predominant number of fans will be from the UK, but there will be large numbers from the U.S. and Europe as well."

[fansince'76]

Originally Posted by Livinginthe past

For those hoping that the NFL won't pursue its plan of enlarging the season to 17 games and having every team play one game abroad this doesn't look like good news.

I think it's great. I keep envisioning the NFL eventually becoming like the film Rollerball (the original 1975 flick, not this recent piece of crap remake), where it is a global league, not just one country. Minus the spiked gloves, of course.

[Livinginthe past]

Originally Posted by fansince'76

I think it's great. I keep envisioning the NFL eventually becoming like the film Rollerball (the original 1975 flick, not this recent piece of crap remake), where it is a global league, not just one country. Minus the spiked gloves, of course.

Well its definitely a thought.

It would be one more game that England could suck at....at least we didn't invent this one

[fansince'76]

Of course, for such an internationalization of the NFL to be feasible, a number of logistical hurdles would have to be cleared. Time zone differences as far as TV scheduling is concerned, for instance - a hardcore fan like me would have no problem getting up at 2 AM Sunday morning to watch a game the Steelers are playing in London, but what about a game in Sydney, which is almost a full 24 hours ahead of where I am in the States (Mountain Time)? Not to mention the millions of casual fans that wouldn't go through the trouble.

And then there is of course the problems of international travel - would they bring SST back for the required trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific flights? And also the concern of jet lag for the players - it would be pretty rough on a team like the Giants to go play a game in Tokyo in that regard.

And then there is the question of quality control - how many more international teams would be added to the existing NFL, and what effect would that have on the talent pool? I can only help but think that the league would certainly become watered down at some point and the overall quality of play to suffer.

Suffice it to say I would eventually like the NFL to become international at some point, but that point is a ways down the road.

[boLT fan]

**** you Roger Goodell

[RoethlisBURGHer]

Globalization of the sport is a good thing,but the NFL itself doesn't need globalized.

Football is a game that's played once a week,not a few times a week like baseball.

[Dynasty]

I think if one or 2 games a year were played, that would be fine, but idont feel that there should be a european team at this pointin time.

and its damned impressive that those 40000 tix sold in an hour and a half.