Question for Arsenal fans

It was announced by the NFL today that my St. Louis Rams would be playing three "home" games in London over the next three years (1 each year). Which basically means that my home city loses out on all the revenue that a Ram home game generates for that weekend.

Anyway, the people of St. Louis are pretty ticked about it. To try and soften the blow, the Rams trotted out their COO Kevin Demoff this morning and he said that Stan Kroenke (the owner of both the Rams and Arsenal) is working on getting Arsenal to come to St. Louis to play an EPL game.

Questions:

1. Kevin Demoff's statement is complete BS, isn't it? What are the chances of the EPL playing a game here in St. Louis? An exhibition, maybe...but not a regular EPL game, right? I'm not even sure that St. Louis has a facility that could properly host such a game.

2. Let's assume for a second that this happens and a proper facility is found, would Gooners cross the pond in droves to make up for the loss of economic activity due to the loss of the three Ram home games? I know that Arsenal has fans who live in America who might come, but are there very many of them?

Have you heard anything about this on your side of the pond?

Hey,

I'm not an Arsenal fan, but I do love football. Some answers for you:

1. In the Premier League they've been trying to trot out the idea that one of our 38 league games could be played offshore. i.e. exactly as you describe above. This went down very very badly here in the UK - the idea that season ticket holders and fans in general missed out on their team playing just because they wanted to promote the game in US/China/etc and get some extra dosh was very badly received.

2. I just looked at the capacity of your stadium. Its 67,000. I'm not sure if you fill it each game? But even so, a rough estimate is about 10,000 Arsenal fans travel to away games in the UK. So, factoring in the flight and hotel and time costs to travel to the US... no... I wouldn't imagine you'd get much more than a 1,000. I wouldn't have thought there was a massive Arsenal support out in Missouri so I'm guessing that only a few Americans would pop along to have a look?

3. So... no, not heard anything about Arsenal going across to the US - news.bbc.co.uk/sport - and whilst its possible to find the story in a UK paper - www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jan/20/st-louis-rams-nfl-uk - you'd have to look for it. The NFL/Ameican Football is not a popular over here and wouldn't raise a headline story - unless of course Arsenal were to play a competitive game over there.

Conclusion - a competitive Premier League game played outside of the UK is very very unlikely at the moment. But with more and more Americans taking over our clubs and pushing for American-style operations, you never know!

Better yet, why don't they just forfeit all of their games and save everyone the headache? The Rams are terrible, man!

* sorry, I couldn't resist XD

Maybe, only maybe, they could put on 3 warm up pre-season games against the likes of LA Galaxy.
For the last 5 years the big teams have been over to Japan and China to crack the market over there, in a way that reminds me of when they tried to crack the yank market around the World Cup.
Blackburn have done some mad travelling under owners-orders so... that may be a factor... (Toon only travel as far as Dublin)...

In ticket sales & accommodation I can't imagine the coffers being the same.
In alcohol sales ..... ha ha

An EPL game outside their own country is never gonna happen - the whole 'let's play a round of league games around the world' was pie in the sky - outside the top 5/6 clubs, where's the attraction? Who would want to watch, say, looking at today's fixtures, QPR v Wigan, Stoke v West Brom or Sunderland v Swansea overseas? Basically the EPL was blowing up it's own ass. As is Stan Kroenke. He may get some friendly tournament challenge cup set up in the States, and he'll probably make alot of money off the sponsorship, TV deals etc. but that's all.

JonX wrote: Hey,

I'm not an Arsenal fan, but I do love football. Some answers for you:

1. In the Premier League they've been trying to trot out the idea that one of our 38 league games could be played offshore. i.e. exactly as you describe above. This went down very very badly here in the UK - the idea that season ticket holders and fans in general missed out on their team playing just because they wanted to promote the game in US/China/etc and get some extra dosh was very badly received.

2. I just looked at the capacity of your stadium. Its 67,000. I'm not sure if you fill it each game? But even so, a rough estimate is about 10,000 Arsenal fans travel to away games in the UK. So, factoring in the flight and hotel and time costs to travel to the US... no... I wouldn't imagine you'd get much more than a 1,000. I wouldn't have thought there was a massive Arsenal support out in Missouri so I'm guessing that only a few Americans would pop along to have a look?

3. So... no, not heard anything about Arsenal going across to the US - news.bbc.co.uk/sport - and whilst its possible to find the story in a UK paper - www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/jan/20/st-louis-rams-nfl-uk - you'd have to look for it. The NFL/Ameican Football is not a popular over here and wouldn't raise a headline story - unless of course Arsenal were to play a competitive game over there.

Conclusion - a competitive Premier League game played outside of the UK is very very unlikely at the moment. But with more and more Americans taking over our clubs and pushing for American-style operations, you never know!

yohashuan wrote: Better yet, why don't they just forfeit all of their games and save everyone the headache? The Rams are terrible, man!

* sorry, I couldn't resist XD

Thanks for kicking us while we're down. Would you like to kick my dog while you're at it?

Thanks for the other responses guys. I would be very surprised if Kroenke gets an EPL game here. Maybe some sort of exhibition game with Arsenal against an MLS team or someone but not an EPL game.

Besides, isn't a regulation EPL pitch 150 yards? If it is, that would never fit into the Dome and I don't see it fitting into Busch Stadium either no matter how they configured it.

The Rams ownership is trying to spin this "playing 3 games overseas" as a way to "grow the brand" beyond St. Louis and increase revenue through overseas shirts and memorabilia sales. No one here is buying it. He's using it as leverage to get the best deal out of the city when the Rams' lease at the Dome expires in a few years. He might even move the team to Los Angeles if he doesn't get what he wants...

Actually the length of a pitch can be anywhere from 100 to 130 yards, so that wouldn't be the problem. You are basically being bullshitted by Stan's man, he will know as he's saying the words that they are lies.

jdrock24 wrote: Thanks for kicking us while we're down. Would you like to kick my dog while you're at it?

Sorry man, I'm just a bitter Redskins fan. Your team will go through the whole superbowl/rebuild/superbowl cycle at least 2 or 3 times before mine ever even sees an 8 win season. In fact, as a Washington sports fan, my only pleasure comes from watching other fans suffer like we do.

But to the actual topic? I have to think the public is right on this one. Kroenke's motivations are purely financial, and I doubt he'd lose an ounce of sleep over the fans heartbreak if he had the chance to take the Rams back to LA.

They might have trouble filling a stadium in St Louis, but not in LA, Phoenix or Texas.
If the Galaxy or maybe a Mini All-Star team was playing Against a Division I team, it would be a sell out, unless of course "The Flopper" himself was playing. Then maybe I wouldn't go, but probable a whole bunch of chicks would go in my place!

Football fields are 120 yards long which is close to 110 meters, plenty big enough for football or futbol. The Galaxy and UCLA both play in the Rose Bowl.

St. Louis is a surprising soccer "hot bed". Nearly everyone here played when they were kids. In fact, my little girl plays both indoor and outdoor and she is only six years old. She's a ferocious defender just like her old man.

Anyway, the point is that I think St. Louis would do better than expected if they pulled this off and got Arsenal to play some type of game here.

However, I still think Stan Kroenke nd his surrogates are just blowing smoke up our @$$!

I am not very familiar with the english Premiere League, since I am german. But if somebody tried to get a team to play a game of the german "Bundesliga", which is the equivalent to the Premiere League around here, anywhere outside of germany I don't even think that would be allowed. In fact I think the hosting team would be disqualified since such a thing stresses the guest-team in a way that has nothing to do with the normal league match.

The problem about the people that own league-tickets was told before, but what about the people that want to go for the other team? I don't think it would be that easy.

Im not an Arsenal-Fan either but since I`m a sportswriter, I guess I have some knowledge about the topic anyway.
Of course, everything that was said about the fans not beeing happy is correct. But: That doesn`t matter at all.
Fans always think that they have some kind of ownership over their club when - almost always - they don`t. If they attend a game or not, no one really cares due to the fact, that there are always others who will fill their spot.
Thus if Kroenke wants to get a game overseas, he`ll do it, no matter what the fans say.
But first of all he has to get approval from the EPL-Board and he has to find another team who wants to do that. So that opens two questions:
- Will the Board approve?
- Which Teams would want to compete in such a game?

Answer to the first question: It is not unlikely. Although the EPL has a great reputation, a lot of fans and tons of money, they could - as everyone in todays society - always use more. And seeing how in Hockey it is already common that Teams play in different areas (NHL vs Europe-Teams, KHL-Games in Switzerland), it surely would also be possible for soccer. So i don`t think the EPL is going to veto, IF Kroenke can advertise it. And this leads to question 2:
The only chance he has in doing so is, if one of the other "big five" is going to play them in the US, namely Man United, Chelsea, Liverpool or Man City - and maybe Tottenham. IF he can convine another manager (I`d guess that the two Manchester Clubs are the most likeliest, due to ownership), there is a very high chance that a game like this is going to happen. `Cause if the management decides, Coach and Players have to follow.
So and lets say, we have the game Arsenal-Man United. As can be seen in the NHL Winterclassic, the US-Broadcasters have no trouble in building up momentum for a special game. Of course, soccer is not a popular in the US as in other places, but still popular enough and i`d guess it wouldn`t be too difficult to get high attendance. The questions remaining then are all economical, like who is broadcasting (what time to they play) and for the EPL, how to they schedule the game, since there are a lot of them at home already (but that wouldn`t be too much of a problem, it could be a season opener f.x.)

Would I like seeing this dream of Kroenk coming true? No. But that too (sadly ) doesn`t matter.