Atlantica - 01.03.2004, Side 16

14 A T L A N T I C A
They've come to Europe to chase a dream. Unlike their com-
patriots who hit the continent in droves during the summer
– lugging backpacks and riding trains from country to coun-
try – these athletes don't have Eurail passes stuffed in their fanny
packs. No, they've come to play football. American football.
They play for teams named the Galaxy or the Centurions in the
hope that they can impress the scouts and one day wear the uni-
form of the Cowboys or the Raiders. They play an American game
in half-filled stadiums while most Europeans are fanatically fol-
lowing the race between Manchester United and Arsenal.
American sports fans won't be tuning in to the games because,
come spring, they've started their annual love affair with baseball.
Welcome to the NFL Europe League (NFLEL), where finely tuned
athletes play: the “other football”.
DEVELOPING TALENT
The NFLEL is essentially a minor league, a training camp, a place
where vagabond journeymen, college studs who didn't get drafted
or players who found their names on the waiver wire come to
prove that they have the skill to play in the US's National Football
League, known as the NFL.
"Everybody who plays on one of the teams knows what we're
here for," says Ralf Kleinmann, a 32-year-old kicker for the
Frankfurt Galaxy, winner of last year's World Bowl, NFLEL's cham-
pionship game.
"We want to move on into the big league."
For the most part, the players sweating it out in Europe during
the spring are from the States. Upwards of 75 per cent of the
league is made up of Americans; the rest are called nationals,
essentially any player not from the States. Like Kleinmann, who is
German, most nationals come from Europe, but the league also
has players from across the globe, countries like Japan, Mexico
and Australia.
But just because NFLEL is a development league doesn't mean
the athletes are not world-class. NFLEL says that a total of nine
players with NFLEL experience took the field in last year's Super
Bowl (the NFL championship game), including Jake Delhomme,
the starting quarterback for the Carolina Panthers, who back in the
1998-99 season led the Galaxy to victory in the World Bowl.
"Playing for Frankfurt Galaxy was great," said Delhomme, before
his Panthers lost to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl
XXXVIII. "It's what a young quarterback needs: getting the chance
to prove yourself on the field. That's why the NFL Europe League
is so important."
A TOUGH SELL
The league started in 1991 and was originally called the World
League of American Football, with ten teams playing in Europe,
the US and Canada. The league was backed by the NFL, but folded
in '93-'94 due, in part, to the major expense of flying teams back
and forth from Europe to the States for games. After a two-year
hiatus, the league returned as an all-European league. In '98, it was
renamed the NFL Europe League.
Despite the NFL's active participation to promote football inter-
nationally, and despite the talent level, NFLEL still struggles to find
its fans on a continent where soccer rules. Just ask the Barcelona
Dragons. On second thought, there's nobody in the Dragons' front
office because the franchise folded last year.
"It's a tough sell," says Kerstin Ehry, the marketing manager for
the Frankfurt Galaxy.
To market the sport, Ehry has engineered some creative events,
such as the traffic-jam promotion when the team sent cheerleaders
to areas of Frankfurt where traffic comes to a standstill every morn-
ing. The cheerleaders showed up with coffee and croissants. This
year the team plans to sponsor an event where fans can win a date
with a cheerleader.
"We create an entertainment world around the sport," Ehry says.
At times it seems like football is secondary. Take a Galaxy home
game where normal attendance is upwards of 35,000. Before each
game, the team sponsors what they call a "Power Party". The party,
starting around 3 pm, is essentially a massive tailgater with barbe-
ques, coolers full of beverages and, of course, lots of cheerleaders.
After the party, fans head to the stadium for a pre-game show. The
game finally starts at 7, running to about 9. That's about seven
hours of entertainment, only two of which are spent playing foot-
ball. Oh, and each game follows a particular theme - Hawaiian or
High Noon. If you saw the film starring Gary Cooper, you can pic-
ture the cheerleaders decked out in cowboy hats with spurs around
their ankles.
"We give people more for their buck," says Ehry.
While fans might get more for their euro, the sport still lags
behind soccer.
"Soccer always has been and will be the most popular sport in
Europe, [but] football can have success," says Kleinmann. "It is
The Other
FOOTBALL
EUROPEANS ARE SLOWLY CATCHING ON TO AMERICAN FOOTBALL THANKS TO THE NFL EUROPE
LEAGUE. BUT ON A CONTINENT WHERE SOCCER REIGNS SUPREME, CAN FOOTBALL COMPETE, ASKS
EDWARD WEINMAN.
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