h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

News listed at NFLeurope.com last night.

The NFL Europe league has decided to suspend the Barcelona Dragons from the league (much as they suspended the Monarchs) due to continually falling attendance (average of about 8600/game for 2003).
The league has decided to move the team to somewhere else, but hasn't announced where yet.

The Barcelona Dragons Head Coach, Jack Bicknell has been appointed the Head Coaching job at the Scottish Claymores instead, to take over from Gene Dahlquist whose contract was not renewed after this past season.

Rumour abound that the new franchise will be set up in Germany, but personally, I don't think that would be a good idea. That'd mean that instead of trying to develop the sport in Europe, they're concentrating it to Germany who in the case of a new team would have four out of the six teams in the league.

Any thoughts on this? Where do you think they should put the team instead of Barcelona? Cologne, Germany? Paris, France? Rome, Italy? Stockholm, Sweden?

If I was the NFLE person, I'd set it up in Germany because the possibilities of keeping attendances high are good. That would meet the recent "Double or Quits" announcement about attendances, and so increase my chances of keeping a job.

From an external perspective though, putting a franchise in Germany would be pretty poor.

I'd say either Sweden or Italy. Can't really see the French people racing to watch Amfoot, especially after all the troubles EuroDisney encountered early on.

BBS

France would have to be a big no no.The anti-US sentiment is huge and anything to do with US culture is agressively rebuffed.
Greece would be any interesting option.Basketball is massive there,baseball also & on my recent holiday you couldn't go anywhere without seeing the NFL on in bars & cafes.Not sure if it was for the tourists though.
Plus with the Olympics round the corner the options fora stadia would be large.

BBS Germany already has half of the NFLE franchises. It is NFLE and not not NFL Deutscheland.

Personally I think that a properly funded league should return a team to London.

Without the Monarch or Dragons only the Admirals remain of the orignal franchises so much for spreading NFL to the world.

My sentiments exactly, DD. I doubt if they are going to return a team to London, though.
I'd like to see a team in Stockholm, and here's why.
The amateur league structure in Sweden is really good, and alot of the teams have grassroots development tied into the teams. I know of a few teams that have pee-wee teams for 5-6 years olds. Also, Stockholm is crowded with teams within a reasonable driving distance (I'm thinking about 1-2 hours here) and when I checked the team listings in Sweden, there are about 10 teams within that distance from Stockholm.
The Swedish league is very well developed and have produced what the likes of UK and Germany have not been able to. A National Starter. Jens Pettersson started as MLB for the Claymores in their first game this past season. As far as I know, in recent years that is the only national starter.

You also have the added advantage of Stockholm being very well connected to Europe, where fans from Glasgow and Frankfurt could fly directly to Stockholm with Ryanair from their local airports. Fans from Amsterdam who would travel could go to Brussels and fly with Ryanair from there, as well. That could mean better attendance, if the fans want a fast and easy way to travel to away games.

Of course, I've already stated this on NFLUK.com with pretty much the same viewpoints, and I may be biased since I'm swedish, but I know I'd be more inclined to go to a game in Stockholm than to a game in Cologne.

Failing London I would back either Italy or Sweden as do they do have strong domestic leagues.

And the winner is Oh surprise surprise....
Germany.
Cologne (Irrigators)suggested name.
Head Coach Peter Vaas ex Berlin Thunder.

Let the debating commence.

Well, it's not really a surprise. I've been scouring the discussion boards of the nfluk.com and TDC (touchdownclaymores.com) and they've both been pretty certain that Cologne would be getting the new team.
Okay, so it may be good for the verage attendance figures as there will be a lot more people travelling from Frankfurt and Düsseldorf for the Cologne games than they ever did to the Barcelona games, but still. That's four teams in Germany now. It's enough!

Deutchesland, Deutchesland Uber alles eh?

Soon, teh NFLE will be renamed NFLD.. NFL Deutschland.

Scotland Claymores twinned with Bavaria.

Amsterdam Admirals twinned with Hamburg.

I of course meant Scottish above I changed what I was typing halfway through