Despite all the effort, NFL can't catch on overseas

	NFL journeyman J.T. O'Sullivan was the co-MVP of the NFL Europa this season. Lars Baron/Getty Images
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The foldage of NFL Europa introduces the interesting question: Does the league have a future anywhere outside of North America? Thus, in keeping with one of the few halfway newsworthy themes this July, Jerome Jumpp of Slough, UK, is our E-mailer of the Week for his thesis that 1) a big reason for failure is that the lesser variety doesn't measure up to the real thing and, 2) the only way to prevent that is to place franchises internationally.

I am prepared for a full-blown historical answer, but first I must say that JJ's solution won't work because travel arrangements over the course of a season would become too onerous. As far as trying to sell the American game to foreign markets, well, let's go back in time, the farther as one gets older:

One of my really enjoyable assignments when I worked for a daily paper was covering the International Soccer League in the old Polo Grounds in NYC. It was founded and run by William Cox, former owner of the Philadelphia Phillies, and informally known as the Cox Soccer League. I loved covering the action ... Dukla of Prague and Kilmarnock of Scotland and Bangu, the Thrill of Brazil. Great stuff! Periodically I would write the same think piece, how soccer was getting ready to make a move in the U.S. and stake out its share of the American public, just wait, any day now it'll happen.

This was 47 years ago. The league lasted a surprising six years and went kapoof! The great takeover hasn't happened. Oh sure, it's become a great participant's sport for kids and it has even introduced the term "soccer mom" into our vocabulary, and fans will turn out for international glamour teams. But the hard core fandom, local city and club loyalty that is the essence of the sport in Europe, is lacking here and probably always will be. It just isn't our own thing.

American football suffers a similar fate in Europe. Burly youngsters who like to whack each other about might take to it, but there is absolutely no fan base and never was and never will be. Our army team in Kaiserslautern tried mightily to interest the German public in our games. Notices were posted all over the place, admission was free. No one came, except the same service families.

I covered the first American Bowl game in Wembley, Vikings vs. Cards in 1983. I wrote a piece about how American football really has a future in England, and I worked the game from the stands, getting fan comments to back up that idea. I remember a quote from one woman who brought her children. "It's a clean game. You can bring your kids. There aren't all those soccer hooligans."

The story never ran. My editors wanted a cliché piece about the players visiting the pubs and posing with the guards at Buckingham Palace and all that stuff, not a serious one. But my angle had been incorrect, anyway.