It’s possible that he struck a kind of gold vein there, says Zeljko Karajica. American football simply fits very well into today’s world: extreme athleticism and entertainment, a combination that can be played well via social media. “But it took ten years to uncover this vein of gold,” the 51-year-old managing director of the European League of Football (ELF) points out. It was he himself who convinced a TV station to broadcast this US professional league NFL regularly. Mining for gold can be tedious.
The request is increasing – in mid-May the number of ticket orders was 650,000
The NFL can feel well marketed in Germany by Karajica and the ELF commissioner Patrick Esume. The growing enthusiasm is measurable. On November 13, the NFL will play its first league game in Germany. The most successful player of all, Tom Brady, then meets the Seattle Seahawks in the Munich Arena with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In mid-May, the number of ticket inquiries was 650,000. And according to a measurement by the Video Research Working Group, football is already the second most popular TV sport in the country after football.
The ELF should now fill the football-free summer slump. Of course, it is still a comparatively small and young offshoot. The second season begins on Saturday with the game between the Cologne Centurions and the Istanbul Rams (5 p.m.). 2,000 spectators are expected. Twelve instead of eight teams now play out the champions. In addition to the Rams, two Austrian teams have also been added. “We have more teams, more games and therefore even more competition,” says Esume, 48, who now has a dual role as a TV expert and marketer, but doesn’t have to pretend: “I can do it for anyone who loves football promise: It will be really crispy.” Esume is, so to speak, the quarterback of the commentator team at ProSiebenSat1, which has welded together a familiar, but at the same time large and advertising-relevant community with their feel for good storytelling that fills the many breaks in the game about teams and individual players.
Some of the ELF protagonists are already known to the community because football careers are no longer one-way streets. Jakob Johnson, who had just joined the Las Vegas Raiders from the New England Patriots, has now become a shareholder in the Stuttgart Surge. The same applies to ex-Indianapolis pro Björn Werner at Berlin Thunder; former NFL pro Kasim Edebali is on the field for the Hamburg Sea Devils. All local heroes, each representing their hometown. Jim Tomsula could also be a small marketing gold vein with the new Düsseldorf Rhein Fire team: The 54-year-old was once the head coach of the San Francisco 49ers (which are known to be named after a gold rush). That means a lot of radiance, although Tomsula wasn’t exactly successful.
This is also being introduced: a technically complex video proof
Beautiful stories need beautiful pictures, and so those responsible are working harder in the second year to further align the league, in which most of the players are still mini-jobbers, with the big role model. The technically complex video evidence is now being introduced, and all teams have to adhere to exact running-in times because of the live transmissions. “Everything is simply more professional than in the national league,” says Cologne coach Frank Roser, who has also worked at US colleges. The time is ripe to think bigger about European football. The national association may have slept through this development for a long time. Now some have the players, others more money, friction was programmed. Frank Roser, for example, had to give up his assistant coaching job with the national team because of his job with the Centurions. The biggest problems are in cities that have a Bundesliga and an ELF team at the same time. There, there are often arguments about the scarce training places, with classic eV teams usually being given preference over private franchises. So there are limits to professionalization.
All the more important that the ELF expands quickly. The long-term goal is a league with 24 teams. “We have signed a TV contract with every country that has a team,” says Karajica proudly – that’s five countries. In addition, there is cooperation with a Chinese streaming service that hundreds of millions of people use.
Also watched in the USA. The ELF is increasingly about promoting the best Europeans for the NFL, which has already been successful. This is a different approach than NFL Europe took from 1991-2007. At that time, the Frankfurt Galaxy met Rhein Fire, as they did again next Sunday. Today, however, the teams mainly consist of said local heroes. So it’s a much more European American football game.
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