Steeler Nation: Love or Hate the Steelers Playing in London in 2013?
By Kim Myers
NFL International Series. How did that NFL Europe turn out? Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-US PRESSWIRE
The NFL owners decided this week that they will include a second game to be played in London during the 2013 season and they have picked your Pittsburgh Steelers to face the Minnesota Vikings in that second game. The plus for Steelers Nation (that doesn’t live in Minnesota) is that it will be considered a home game for the Vikings and won’t take away a game from Heinz Field next season. Coming from the NFL perspective, this couldn’t be a better pick for the second game abroad, considering how well Steeler Nation is known to travel. What does it mean for the diehard NFL fans? Well in my opinion, it’s just another piece of proof that Goodell and his owner buddies don’t give a crap about us diehards. They’d rather earn fanship from Europeans and casual fans here than please those of us who will continue to shell out our hard earned cash for games and licensed products anyway.
Rogeez said previously that he is concerned with the growing realization that the “at home” experience to watch an NFL game is growing increasingly more attractive to fans than physically going to games but seemingly all he’s done to improve the stadium experience is break out the Wi-Fi and put the drunken idiots who get thrown out of the stands through behavior courses if they want to return. The incidents of fan violence at stadiums are on the rise and ticket price aren’t going down anytime soon either. But those Londoners want more NFL football so let’s go ahead and please them first. Not to mention the Vikings fans that were just forced to pay through taxes for a new stadium to prevent their team being moved to Los Angeles are now losing a home game for their efforts. My guess is for Jaguars fans to get used to seeing their team play in London because they’ll soon be called the London Jaguars. With a team located in London, after Rogeez is done doing his happy dance it won’t be long until London is awarded a Super Bowl.
So enough of the negativity for now, who’s ready to party it up in London? What are your thoughts about the Steelers traveling abroad? Insert your Big Ben sees Big Ben jokes here. Are you opening your London savings account now or are you already ruling yourself out of the trip on principle? The preliminary estimates are that a trip package including game tickets and airfare could run you about $3,700 a person. You have about 11 months to save up, or 11 months to keep complaining about the idea of taking America’s game overseas. What’s your vote Steeler Nation?
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