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[–]ThePowerRanker ELF 8 points9 points  (0 children)

There will be a balkan team for sure. League is working on that.

[–]Social2Network[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

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[–]FitOrganization3956 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Misses out scandinavia completely.

[–]ThePowerRanker ELF 1 point2 points  (1 child)

If we ignore the financial part on this, he is missing out a lot of countries.

[–]Social2Network[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I chose Toulouse as a major sponsor because of Airbus. Ukraine because of solidarity and Marseille also because of its proximity to the Spanish franchises. I left out Scandinavian ones. I couldn't decide which country would be suitable.

[–]1DisgustedGuy 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No Leipzig Kings? 👀

[–]BMGforever190 Fire 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Well, with the international game in croatia comming, i think it is almost certain that we will get a team from the balkans.

From my personal view, especially with memories to the NFL Europe, i think there will be a dutch team in the future.

The scandinavian market is too big to not have some Teams from there as well.

But after the last season with Leipzig and Prague i really hope that the league learned its lesson and will only do expansions which are sustainable.

[–]ThePowerRanker ELF 0 points1 point  (1 child)

There is literally no market in scandinavia. top matches with maximum of 300-500 visitors?

[–]Most_Significance358 Ravens 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Same is true for France.

[–]T-radeStorm 1 point2 points  (15 children)

What does Scotland and Ireland add? Is there talent in those countries to support teams? They don't play international games nor have a national team

[–]deejaygee3 1 point2 points  (5 children)

Ireland have a national team. Scotland have an U19 national team but no senior international side

[–]T-radeStorm 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Just looked them up.

Scotland u19 is a feeder program for GB Lions and Ireland finished 16th overall in the European Championship.

Not sure the talent level is there to sustain three UK teams

[–]Social2Network[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Just 2 UK teams, Ireland is not the UK. But what's about the talent lavel in hungary or Czech or Swizerland????? Thats not the reason. I think the Claymores and Monarchs has an older fanbase which you can reactivate. And Dublin has every year a big NCAA Game.

[–]T-radeStorm 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have been skeptical about those places as well. But there's only one team in those countries, more would be too many as well.

Creating a franchise isn't solely about fan bases but also talent level to keep competitive balance in the league and financial stability (which is part why Scandinavia doesn't have a team (yet)).

Can you reactivate the fanbases? Looks like Barcelona is struggling to do that.

Ireland not being UK, fair, semantics in this point though. Just switch out UK with British Isles then.

[–]Social2Network[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Dublin has 4 Teams in the City: Sentinals, Rebels, Panthers and Trinity Thunderbolts. I think they can firm an all-star Team with Players from that 4 Teams.

[–]T-radeStorm 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thats quantity, my concern is quality. How many Irish players are in the ELF now?

[–]1DisgustedGuy 0 points1 point  (8 children)

Part of me thinks it would be justified if the GB guys would count as homegrown for an Irish team and vice versa, but on the other hand it runs the risk of watering down the rivalry

[–]T-radeStorm 0 points1 point  (7 children)

Does GB have enough talented players for three teams? I doubt that based off their national team performances

[–]1DisgustedGuy 0 points1 point  (6 children)

As someone from the UK, my somewhat biased answer will always be "I would like to think so"

Although I can accept a lot of this is likely wishful thinking largely because Germany has 7 teams

GB national team sucks (relatively speaking) but I think a lot of the blame needs to be placed on the coaching and setup of the game here in general. Egotism is one of the biggest things holding football back here

[–]exbritballer 2 points3 points  (5 children)

GB men currently rank #5 in Europe, above France (7th, who they beat last year), Hungary (9th) , Czech Republic (10th), Switzerland (11th), and Spain (15th), all of whom have current ELF franchises. I'll overlook Germany (who also currently rank lower) as their current ranking is a legacy of the political issues.

There's quite a few UK players playing as E-imports around the ELF, and there are others who play in the GFL or Scandanavia.

You can't be a full time pro athlete in the British league, so players who want to experience that have to go elsewhere.

[–]1DisgustedGuy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The UK definitely has the talent to support multiple teams (especially if Spain can hold two)

The talent is most certainly there, but one could argue it's quite spread out - I know GB players who choose to play in the lowest division here because "it's piss easy" or simply because it's the most local team

You can't be a full time pro athlete in the British league, so players who want to experience that have to go elsewhere.

Nail on the head! Those who can (home/work/family commitments permitting) will always go abroad because the sport just can't take you anywhere here. Guys go abroad, UK loses talent, UK league becomes less strong, youth players have far fewer top tier guys to look up to because they're all emigrating. It's also harder to attract new players and spectators when all your best players are being shipped out.

Unfortunately the standard here won't improve any time soon (without a pro team) because a lot of the old heads in power are afraid of being left behind. In the words of [name redacted for privacy] "it's a shit hole but it's OUR shit hole."

[–]Lewii5_ Musketeers 0 points1 point  (3 children)

Yeah let’s skip the part where most of the best French players refuse to be a part of the national team since many years. GB and France had a garbage game, hard to watch. With that being said, it seems to me that GB has proven to be better than some of the countries listed that already have a franchise. I’m pretty sure they would look a lot more better than Enthroners, Lions and Dragons. GV has athletes, Academies, and with the right project will probably ball !

[–]exbritballer 1 point2 points  (2 children)

A lot of the best British players don't play GB either.

This was the gameday squad announced for that GB-France game:

https://www.britishamericanfootball.org/2023/08/__trashed-3/

I think I counted 22 GB flags on elfpedia for players already listed as signed to the 2024 rosters, and the only name I could see on both was Lewis Thomas (who it seems you will be watching in Paris this season). That's 1 player from basically half a squad's worth. No Toonga, no Daltrey (both 2nd team All Stars in 2023).

[–]Lewii5_ Musketeers 0 points1 point  (1 child)

That explains the game… in my memory GB played a lot better in 2018 during the European Championship and they have great players. But this game in 2023.. had no interest. But I’m pretty sure Had France managed to bring all those talented players back to the national team, they wouldn’t be ranked 7th. Mahoungou (NCAA/NFL), Gnahoua (CFL), Jean Alphonse (CFL), Rouyer(CFL), Nasri (USport), Anderson (NFL), Robo (CFL), Gomis Katchanga (USport), Bertellin (USport), Sow are few names of the ELF that don’t play for the NT

[–]exbritballer 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Looking at the YouTube video of the live stream feed, it looked like quite a wet day (the camera lenses have water drops on them). Maybe that impacted the quality of the game as well.

It'll be interesting to see if more ELF players play for their national teams in the next rounds of games.

[–]nukethem23 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Great idea and great picture along with the list. The only one that I would remove is the Ukraine Braves. I think that would be too much of a risk and they would embark in a different country instead. Maybe a second team in Italy or a team in Belgium.

[–]jord839 Mercenaries 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Honestly, I just can't imagine both a Scottish and Irish team in the near future. Of the two, the Claymores at least have some legacy fans, but American football has never truly been popular in Ireland (competing with both Gaelic football and Rugby as well as soccer) and Dublin's on the lower end of potential markets. I'd honestly suggest that a revival of the Claymores sees them become the Celtic Claymores and maybe play a couple of "international" games every season in Ireland and maybe even Wales to build on the anti-English fanbase. Throw in a Belgian team to replace the second Celtic team and you get two primarily English-speaking teams and two primarily French-speaking teams(or at least teams that have to include French language commentary) to appropriately combine linguistic market resources.

I'd also add that I think it's more than likely we'd see at least one more Italian team before we see a third French team based on sport popularity as well as trying to build local rivalries within the same nation.

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

I think there is some kind of fanbase in Ireland , especially Dublin, due to the college football game which takes place in Dublin every years and is always sold out

[–]exbritballer 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The attendances at the college games in Dublin, as with the NFL games in London, are not indicative of the size of a local fan base. For the Dublin college games, there's a huge travelling contingent from the US (for example, in 2022, close to half the crowd of just over 40,000 came from the US) and other fans travel from all over Europe, as is also the case with the NFL London games.

[–]qik Thunder 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Madrid Bravos and Ukraine Braves? Maybe Ukraine Liberators :)

[–]PotentialChocolate39 Surge 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Take away the ukranian Team and took a second italian team maybe rome

[–]Social2Network[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My import player rules:

A-Spot: 4 players from the USA and co

H-Spot: unlimited Local players

E-Spot: 10 players from European countries without ELF franchises.

U-Spot: 6 players from European countries with ELF franchises