I absolutely HATE games played over-seas. If Europe was such a hot-bet, why did the developmental league die?
They should be playing the PRO BOWL is other countries.. Let that be the advertising. Otherwise, it screws over the loyal fanbases of both teams.
1. development league was a poor try in the early 90, the fans over here want as well the real nfl (stars and teams) nowdays and the interest for the game increased drastically in the last 5 years, 91-93 was not yet the right time for the NFL in europe and the concept of some piss poor fake football nobody bought in, but now with the real NFL teams playing here its a different story
2. in the last couple of years there is an highly increased tv coverage as well (and therefore fan interest of the nfl throughout western and eastern europe increased as well), you get like at least 3-4 games per week live while when I first got into it 20 years ago it was 1 ****ing game A YEAR, and that was the SB, you didn't even had quite any chance to watch a game, early 2000 there were no possibilities to watch the NFL as easy as it is nowdays...
during the early 90s when the NFL Europe was played (and nobody cared) it was even less, like ZERO games you were able to watch, welcome to the streaming age, back then it was even hard to get any kind of information like what the score the last game was let alone having any kind of highlights or broadcast of the games, even youtube was not there yet in early 2000, times have changed
3. there is a huge market potential the same size of the USA (500+ M people with growing interests for the nfl) the owners didnt accept the 9th home field game just to hand over extra game to season ticket holders, theyd rather cash in on the new opportunities outside of US where you can gain even more money from new thursty fans that are probably more willing to pay extra to watch, people are traveling from Italy, France, Netherlands etc. to Germany to watch the game, thanks to Brady, Vollmer, Jakob Johnson, etc. the Pats have quite a fanbase in Germany I would not underestimate it, if there would be nothing to earn be sure the NFL would not be here and I am greatfull for the opportunity given to the fans here to have a chance to watch a live game, its way easier than travel to the states to watch a game