NFL Europe

WLAF logo

The World League of American Football was formed in 1989, by a unanimous vote of NFL owners,[1] as a spring developmental league, the "brainchild" of commissioner Paul Tagliabue.[3] This came after the NFL had played popular American Bowls in London's Wembley Stadium and elsewhere since 1986. Of the 28 NFL teams, 26 paid $50,000 each in startup costs for the WLAF.[6] Team payrolls and budgets were controlled by the WLAF office[6] but not all teams were owned by the league; in May 1992 it owned five (including Barcelona, London and Frankfurt) and partially owned three.[1]

The WLAF was set up as a professional American football league for North America and Europe consisting of six teams from the United States, three European teams and one Canadian team. In 1991, parties in Moscow and Japan expressed an interest in additional franchises.[7]

Teams were aligned in three divisions:

• North American West: Birmingham Fire, Sacramento Surge, San Antonio Riders
• North American East: Montreal Machine, New York/New Jersey Knights, Orlando Thunder, Raleigh–Durham Skyhawks (replaced by Ohio Glory in 1992)
• European: Barcelona Dragons, Frankfurt Galaxy, London Monarchs

The WLAF played two seasons in the spring of 1991 and 1992, with 10 teams playing a 10-game regular season culminating with the World Bowl championship game. Rules unique to WLAF included assigning increasing point value to field goals based on distance and a requirement that at least one non-American player must participate in at least every other series of downs.

New ideas were successfully tested, such as the two-point conversion rule already in use in college football and the Canadian Football League before it was adopted by the NFL in 1994. Other minor tweaks in gameplay, such as a shorter kickoff tee, were also first used in the WLAF. Several technical innovations, such as helmet-mounted cameras[8] and one-way radios, enabling coaches to tell plays directly to quarterbacks, were also developed.

The average game attendance for the first season was 25,361, and 24,216 in the second season.[9] The original WLAF was barely noticed in the United States, having a "minor-league or developmental image"[7] and low TV ratings.[6] In the cities of London, Barcelona, Frankfurt and Montreal, crowds surpassed early expectations.[7] The Monarchs' home attendance led the league,[10] and the 1991 World Bowl played at Wembley Stadium was attended by 61,108.[11]

In May 1991, the Los Angeles Times's Chris Dufresne said American fans were less likely than Europeans to "shell out hard-earned dollars for games featuring roster-cut leftovers" and suggested there was a post-USFL backlash in Orlando, Birmingham and San Antonio.[12] The WLAF lost $7 million in 1991.[1]

The playoff format consisted of four teams: the three divisional champions, plus a wild card with the best overall non-division winning record. The two teams emerging from the WLAF semifinal playoffs met at the end of the season in the World Bowl. The first two World Bowl locations were predetermined before the season. The average WLAF salary for 10 games plus playoffs was $40,000, but some of the top players made close to $100,000.[13]

WLAF operations were suspended after the 1992 season, as the league had lost money, and the NFL owners who were involved were not willing to invest more. However, the NFL still needed another pro football league to help their cause in the antitrust and free-agency lawsuit with the National Football League Players' Association.

Wembley Stadium, the host stadium of World Bowl '91

The three Europe-based teams dominated in 1991, with a combined 24–6 record, while no North American team managed better than 5–5. The London Monarchs won the World Bowl. The Raleigh-Durham Skyhawks lost all 10 games and ultimately their franchise, which was moved to Ohio for 1992.

	Semifinals					World Bowl '91
	1	Barcelona Dragons	10
	4	Birmingham Fire	3
						Barcelona Dragons		0
						London Monarchs		21
	3	London Monarchs	42
	2	New York/New Jersey Knights	26

The site of World Bowl '92 was the Olympic Stadium (Montreal)

The WLAF's second season was confirmed to go ahead on 23 October 1991, six months before it eventually kicked off.[11][14]

In 1992, fortunes changed and none of the European teams had winning seasons. Despite this, the European fans remained loyal, but the NFL owners suspended the WLAF after the season.[15] Paul Tagliabue mentioned plans to bring it back with only European teams, possibly in 1994.[15][16] British sports writer Matt Tench cited "an ambivalence on the part of the NFL owners: they wanted a spring league but did not want to create a rival to the NFL. In the end they did not create enough of a rival."[16]

The Sacramento and San Antonio franchises left the WLAF, with their ownership groups attempting to secure franchises in the Canadian Football League in preparation for the CFL's U.S. expansion in 1993. The Sacramento Gold Miners would play in the CFL for three years, becoming the first American franchise in the league (and beginning a three-season sojourn in the U.S. for the CFL).

After 1992, the World League was suspended for two years. The spring developmental league had enough NFL support to continue, but without any North American teams. The new teams were announced in July 1994,[17] and the third WLAF season began in April 1995. The 1995 WLAF[2] was based entirely in Europe, and was reduced to six teams.[18] The three existing European teams (London, Barcelona and Frankfurt) were joined by three new teams in Amsterdam (the Admirals), Düsseldorf (Rhein Fire) and Edinburgh (Scottish Claymores).

In the wake of Fox's new contract to broadcast NFL games, the network became a co-owner of the WLAF and a major financial contributor, in return for broadcasting rights.[19] The relaunched league was sponsored by Reebok, which also manufactured team uniforms and apparel.[20]

All six teams played in a single division. With each team playing all other teams twice (home and away), the WLAF's regular season spanned 10 games, as it had in 1991–92. Under the new format, the World Bowl championship game would match up the first-half league leader, who would host the game, and the end-of-season league leader (or runner-up, if the first-half champion also had the best overall record). This selection process was abandoned after the 1997 World Bowl.

In 1995, league attendances averaged less than 15,000.[21]

The London Monarchs left Wembley Stadium for reasons of cost, size and availability,[18][19] and the team's home games were played at Tottenham Hotspur F.C.'s White Hart Lane in the 1995 and 1996 seasons.[22] White Hart Lane's field was only 93 yards long – nowhere near enough to hold a full 120-yard field and end zones – so the WLAF had to grant an exemption from the usual rules.[23][24]

The 1996 season was confirmed to go ahead before World Bowl '95, ten months before the 1996 kickoff.[21]

More than 100 players with World League experience played in the American NFL in 1996.[25][26] Meanwhile, the WLAF signed some players who had been more famous in other leagues and sports – in 1996 the London Monarchs signed former NFL star William Perry[27][28] and the Scottish Claymores' kicker was Scotland's national rugby union team captain, Gavin Hastings.[27][29]

The London Monarchs moved to Stamford Bridge for the 1997 season.[30]

By the end of the 1997 season, there were growing concerns that WLAF markets, except Germany, were not living up to their potential. Average attendance for the Monarchs was around 10,000 in 1995–97.[31] Radical changes were made to the two British teams and venues for the upcoming 1998 season. At a press conference in San Diego during Super Bowl XXXII weekend, the league announced that it would be rebranded as NFL Europe.

NFL Europe logo

Frankfurt's Michael Bishop passing against Scotland, 2001

Starting in 1998, the league was known as NFL Europe. Qualification for the World Bowl championship game also changed. The two teams with the best overall record after 10 games competed in the World Bowl, to be hosted at a predetermined site. A team could no longer secure a World Bowl berth midway through the season. The change was largely attributed to the play of the eventual 1997 World Bowl champions, the Barcelona Dragons, who secured a World Bowl berth with a 4–1 first-half record and proceeded to rest players and play what some argued was low-intensity football in the second half, finishing with just a 5–5 record and third place overall in the standings.

The Scottish Claymores began to divide their schedule between Edinburgh and Glasgow's Hampden Park, having previously only played at Murrayfield. The London Monarchs became the England Monarchs,[32] playing home games in London, Birmingham and Bristol, and switching their colors from blue, gold and red to red, white and black.

In the late 1990s, two future NFL star quarterbacks were active in the European league.[3] Kurt Warner played for the Amsterdam Admirals in 1998, with Jake Delhomme as his backup quarterback. Delhomme played for the Frankfurt Galaxy the following season in an unorthodox two-quarterback system that also included Pat Barnes; the Galaxy won the 1999 World Bowl.

The NFL Europe era was beset by instability, but NFL Europe president Oliver Luck was "well past being concerned with the short term"[31] and claimed attendances were less vital to revenues than before 1998.[31] However, with attendances slumping to an average of 5,944, the England Monarchs were shut down after the 1998 season, replaced by the Berlin Thunder. In 2002, the Barcelona Dragons became an official section of FC Barcelona, adopting the name FC Barcelona Dragons. However, after only one year Barcelona dropped its sponsorship. With the team struggling financially and generating little fan support, the NFL was not interested in keeping the franchise alive, and replaced it with the Cologne Centurions for the 2004 season.

The Barcelona Dragons played at FC Barcelona’s mini stadium (pictured in 2003) for one full season before being dropped by the club because of lack of fan interest and financial difficulties.

The Scottish Claymores, one of the three teams added to the league in 1995, were also discontinued in 2004, and were replaced by the Hamburg Sea Devils for the 2005 season. With this change, five of the six teams in the league's final incarnation were from Germany, with one from the Netherlands, leading some of the league's detractors to refer to it as "NFL Deutschland" or "NFL Germany",[33] even speculating that the Admirals only remained in Amsterdam because they had won World Bowl XIII. Unsurprisingly, German teams, won all seven World Bowls between 1998 and 2004.

In 2005, the total attendance at the thirty games was 568,935, and the average attendance of 18,965 was the highest since 1992. On the other hand, TV contracts were canceled when teams moved, such as the termination of the league's deal with satellite TV platform Digital+ in Spain after the demise of the Barcelona Dragons. Player salaries had gone down since the start of the WLAF, when the average was $40,000. By 2005, the salary was $18,500 for quarterbacks and $13,500 for all other positions.[34]

In 2006, the league's schedule opened and closed one month earlier than normal because of the 2006 FIFA World Cup, which was played at four of the five German stadiums that hosted NFL Europe teams. Only the LTU Arena in Düsseldorf was not chosen to host World Cup matches, and that stadium hosted the World Bowl that year.

The league's final logo

On 11 September 2006, NFL Europe officially re-branded itself as NFL Europa to reflect the name of Europe in most European languages, including Dutch and German. "NFL Europe" continued to be used informally in the United States, including for the league's English-language website, nfleurope.com.

On 29 June 2007, NFL officials announced that the NFL Europa league would be disbanded, effective immediately.[4][35] The announcement came less than a week after the Hamburg Sea Devils had defeated the Frankfurt Galaxy 37–28 in World Bowl XV in Frankfurt before a crowd of 48,125.

Brent Grimes of the Hamburg Sea Devils intercepts a pass against the Amsterdam Admirals, 12 May 2007.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell thanked the fans for their support but said that it was time to develop a new international strategy, terming the move to fold NFL Europa the "best business decision."[36] The league was reportedly losing about $30 million a season.[36]

ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli wrote after the league's disbandment in 2007, "Recently, the European league became far less a laboratory for player development and more an exercise in amassing exemptions for NFL summer training camps. [...] there weren't many [NFL] team officials who adhered to the original intent anymore."[3]

Pasquarelli also named J. T. O'Sullivan as the best 2007 NFL Europa player at a time when O'Sullivan was no higher than third on the quarterback depth chart of the Chicago Bears.[3] According to Pasquarelli, NFL Europe and NFL Europa "simply stopped producing players with even scant name recognition", with most coaches preferring to develop their players themselves.[3]

NFL Europe/NFL Europa was credited for providing training to coaching interns and game officials, and as well as for being a useful testing ground for potential NFL rule changes.[3]

Various reasons were put forward for NFL Europe’s collapse and the game’s limited appeal outside North America. John Williams, director of the Center for the Sociology of Sport at the University of Leicester, cited the league's "lack of flow", with play broken up for "tactical talks and time outs", deemed "too contrived" by fans of more free-flowing sports.[37]

The NFL announced plans for a "stronger international focus on regular-season games outside the United States."[38] The NFL International Series began in October 2007 at Wembley Stadium, London, and continues today. The Bills Toronto Series started in 2008 but ended in 2013. However, no mainland European country has hosted any NFL games for 20 years since Germany hosted exhibition games from 1991 to 1994.

Since 2007, the most prominent intra-European competitions have been the BIG6 league, European Football League, EFAF Cup (2002–2013) and EFAF European Championship.

The 1995 WLAF relaunch featured uniforms with a significantly different look from what is traditionally associated with American football. Instead of the standard large numbers centered on the front of the jersey, the team logos took precedence, with a smaller number over the right collarbone area.[48] The Monarchs reverted to the traditional look in 1997 and the rest of the league followed a year later. The 1998 uniform designs were "thought to appeal to European tastes."[31]

USA Network carried most of the WLAF games on Saturday and Monday nights in the 1991 season and again on Saturday nights for the 1992 season. Diana Nyad served as the network's host for pregame and halftime. The network premiered the helmet cam to TV audiences.

ABC Sports broadcast some games in both seasons, mostly on Sunday afternoons. ABC showed the 1991 World Bowl, while USA carried the game in 1992.

The reported cost of the contracts varied – the L.A. Times said that ABC had paid $28m for two years, and USA $25m.[6] For the 1992 season, the WLAF charged each network less for broadcasting rights; the New York Times reported that ABC's annual fee went down from $12m to $3m, and USA's from $14m to $10m.[1] The average ratings for ABC's coverage declined from 1991 to 1992, from around 2.1 to 1.7, and those of USA Network dipped from 1.2 to 1.1.[1][6] Both networks asked the WLAF to expand into two major U.S. markets for 1993.[1]

1991 season coverage in Europe was mostly on satellite television. Eurosport showed games on delay[10] and Super Channel showed the 1991 World Bowl.[10] Channel 4 showed half-hour highlights of Monarchs games on Saturday mornings.[10] The Philadelphia Inquirer's Larry Eichel wrote, "The only way a Monarchs fan could watch the team's first-round playoff game from the Meadowlands was to go to Wembley to see it on closed circuit."[10]

Coverage in Canada was led by RDS, a French-language broadcaster, which focused on Montreal Machine games.

Although the league no longer had any U.S. teams, American television coverage continued until the end. Fox Sports had become a co-owner of the league,[19][49] and from 1995 to 1998 the primary TV carrier was FX, which carried two games a week on Saturday and Sunday. From 1995 to 2005, Fox showed the World Bowl and two or three regular season games annually. From 1999 to 2004, Fox Sports Net showed a "game of the week" on Saturday, with DirecTV viewers receiving additional live games on channels that normally carried NFL Sunday Ticket. In 2006, NFL Network began showing all regular-season games, either live or on tape delay, and this continued until the league folded. NFL Network also showed the 2006 and 2007 title games.

The revived WLAF's UK coverage was mainly on Sky Sports, with coverage also on Channel 4,[21][49] STV[21][49] and Carlton.[21] Eight European continental broadcasters also showed coverage,[49] including Germany's Vox and DSF.[21]

Announcers who called NFL Europe games included Curt Menefee, Nick Halling, Ari Wolfe, Troy Aikman, Daryl "Moose" Johnston, Michael Reghi and Brentson Buckner.

EuroPass, an offshoot of FieldPass, broadcast Internet video of games, free of charge, in the league's later years.