American Football coming to India

[KNPKH2ster]

Before you answer the poll, read this:

As you may know, American Football (gridiron) is expanding to India. Notable NFL personalities such as Ron Jaworski, Michael Irvin, Mike Ditka, and Brandon Chillar are the investors of this new organization called Elite Football League of India (EFLI). 8 teams have been created and EFLI is scheduled to start their inaugural season in November 2012. More info can be found on: http://www.efli.com/

With the new organizati​on called Elite Football League of India becoming the first American Football organizati​on in India, Do you believe that American Football will make an impact in India?

 

[SD619]

I answered No.

The reason is simple. No one knows a lot about this game or its rule in India. There are a number of sports(in which some Indians have made an impact) which are struggling to get media attention(athletics,squash,etc).

So, the chances of American Football making an impact in India are remote. At most, we might see some Indian businessmen/companies buy a stake in some of the major franchisees.

 

[Hulk Hogan's Brother]

I really want to know what motivated the people involved to take this decision because it looks like sheer madness to me. As someone who is from India, I can confidently say that there are only a handful of people who know that this sport exists. American Football, to my knowledge has NEVER ever been telecast on the sports channels of this country and the few people that know about it do so by watching clips of it on SportsCenter India on ESPN. Even baseball is much more known than American football here and that's not saying much, mind you.

Also reading through the article I found that the people involved are training a few of Indian rugby players in American Football which is all the more laughable. They need to learn rugby first. India's rugby scene is deplorable and there was actually a filmstar, an averagly built guy, who actually played for the first team. I actually think India has lost like 86-0 to Wales in Rugby or something like that. India has excelled in many sports but Rugby is just not one of them.

I suspect that this decision has something to do with the success of the IPL in the country but the IPL was a different ball game altogether. Firstly, it was cricket, a sport that India has been playing and excelling in for decades. And secondly, its not that huge crowds turned up to cheer for their respective franchises. Yes, sure they wanted their city based team to win but first and foremost, the crowds turned up to be entertained. Almost everyone participating in that event was a household name in India and that is what was the biggest drawing card of the event.

Actually there is a pretty good example of something like EFLI being attempted and failing to take off. Before the IPL was the PHL which was based on a similar format as the IPL. The sport in question was Field Hockey, a sport that was extremely popular in India and in which India has won a record number of Olympic Gold Medals in. However Field Hockey fell off in India post the 1980's with a string of poor performances and obviously the rise of cricket. PHL or Premier Hockey League was an attempt to reinvigorate the masses towards the sport once again. However PHL ran for a few seasons before getting panned. And Hockey is a known sport in India so you can imagine what would happen to the likes of ELFI.

If I were in their shoes, I'd get an Indian business tycoon to invest into the NFL. That is the only in which I think that the NFL might be able to derive some profit from the sub-continent.

 

[WT3IS]

When I see this, all I can help to think of is that former European NFL... And we all know, what happened to that league...