Kirkwood: Good afternoon. As a way of introduction, my name is Alistair Kirkwood, managing director of the NFL’s UK office. As you all know our territory is going to host the first regular season game played outside the Americas on October 28th. I would like to thank Mayor Livingstone for his time today and for playing a pivotal role in ensuring that London got this tremendous game.
Secondly, I would like to recognize James Bidwell who is the CEO of Visit London. He has made a great partnership with the NFL and plays a tremendous role in ensuring we have a game to remember.
Thank you to Jonathan Tisch for hosting this press conference and for leading the Giants. It is a tremendous statement in having the Dolphins play against the Giants at Wembley.
And a thank you to the two players that are here – David Diehl and Osi Umenyiora who is a homeboy of London. He was born three miles west of Wembley and although he has not been to London in a few years he will get a good welcome from a very excited London fan base.
In terms of the game itself, back in October, the owners overwhelmingly voted for the institution of the international regular season game series. The game on Oct. 28th will be the first game in that series. We could not have anticipated having two teams as highly respected and popular as the NY Giants and Miami Dolphins. And that has been reflected in a tremendous upsurge in interest in tickets. We opened the ticket registry within moments of Commissioner Goodell announcing on Friday of Super Bowl that the game was taking place. Within 72 hours we received over half a million ticket requests. We closed that ticket registry after three weeks. Tomorrow, the first group of tickets in London will be made available. Over the next few weeks tickets will be made available here in NY as well as Miami. Wembley holds 90,000. It is a tremendous stadium and will be a true testament to what is a very important inaugural game. Without further adieu, I’ll turn it over to Mayor Livingstone for opening comments.
Mayor Livingstone: As you know we have a meeting of 38 mayors from the worlds’ largest cities taking place nearby, discussing what we can do to tackle climate change and I’m delighted to say that we intend to offset the carbon cost of the flights of the teams to London as an indication of where we think the world has got to go in terms of recognizing the impact of human civilization on the planet. This is part of a series of measures we are taking to try and tackle climate change and global warming. We made very good process. Thirty-eight mayors from different nations, religions and political backgrounds and the only thing we can all agree on is that we need to work together to tackle this. Recognizing that in terms of offsetting these flights, I think is a significant indication of what we need to do in the years to come.
When I was in Miami, one of the British journalists came up to me in the dour, sour way most of the journalists have in Britain, and said, ‘Won’t it be humiliating if there are a lot of empty seats.’ I said, ‘Well I suspect that will not be the case.’ What this clearly shows is that there is a huge potential in Britain and wider in Europe for American football to have a huge impact. We want to see the NFL coming back to London again and again. We’ll always make you welcome.
For any journalist that wants to see a city where everything seems to be going right at the moment, come a few days early and see the welcoming we are going to give to these two teams. James Bidwell who is our head of Visit London has dramatically turned around the way in which we sell our city by emphasizing what’s here and what’s now and nothing is going to ever be so here and now than this game between the Giants and Dolphins. I think it will trigger massive interest in Britain. When I came here two years ago now, lobbying for the honor of having this game staged in London, what I found interesting was that the NFL wanted to build this game in London – go into the schools and show kids what they can achieve.
We are honored that the Olympic Games will be coming to London in 2012 and I think we have recognized that with the end of the Cold War and more intense political divisions, increasingly nations define themselves by their culture, their sport and by what they offer humanity. And your game has offered the world endless joy and pleasure and achievement. We are just honored you are prepared to let us be a platform for that incredible enterprise.
Kirkwood: Let me invite Jonathan Tisch to say a few words as well.
Tisch: On behalf of the Mara and Tisch families we are just very excited about this being the first of many international games. When you consider that we live in a world of brands and brands dominate, you have coming together a lot of remarkable names. You have the NY Giants, the Miami Dolphins, the city of London and New York City and Miami – all converging together to promote the number one game in the world from our perspective and that is U.S. football. We know that fans that are fortunate enough to go the game in person are going to have a unique and remarkable experience. And then the product will be broadcast not only back to the United States but all over the world. So we are going to import and export the game of football. We are going to import it into the great city of London and we are going to export it from the great city of London around the world.
There are a few particulars for Giants fans who want to be there in person and we are hoping that many will travel across the pond. There will be packages that include airfare, hotels, game transfers, and a double decker bus tour of London, tickets and of course there has to be a tailgate party outside of Wembley. The packages range from $2400 to $4800. We are also including some great Giants Hall of Famers that will be joining the team, including George Martin, Harry Carson, Phil McConkey, Mark Bavaro and many others, the guys that played the game before our two stars on either side of me. And they are going to add to the experience. What’s very gratifying to us at the Giants is the initial response. I just want to read one or two emails which I have received from our fans.
“I am a Canadian citizen who has been a huge Giants fan for years and would love the opportunity to travel with other Giants fans to London to see my boys play. I would take the bus down to NJ prior to traveling to London. I’ve only seen them play once and it was a dream come true. If I were able to go to this game, I would die a happy man.
Mayor Livingstone: That’s not a requirement, is it?
Tisch: Not to mention the presence of being with Giants’ greats. Please let me know if I qualify either way because I am holding my breath.”
One other: “I’ve been a Giants fan since seven. I live in Colorado now. I’m a single mom with an eight-year old who carries on the tradition. We would love to go to the game.”
This is the history of Giants football. This is the history of the NFL and now it’s going to be played out on a worldwide stage. On behalf of the Giants and the Dolphins, we are just thrilled to be part of this historic moment. We know that London is going to do a phenomenal job. The mayor deeply understands the importance of travel and tourism. One of my other roles is that I serve as chairman of NYC & Co. which is NYC’s travel and tourism agency, very similar to Visit London. We understand that when you team together travel, tourism, sports and big events, not only is it important because it provides opportunities for people to experience something that is unique and different but it also creates jobs. Our industry creates job. This game in London will help our friends in London create more jobs for the travel and tourism industry. It’s important on many levels but it’s also important because it’s the first, it’s historic, it’s the NY Giants and the Miami Dolphins.
Q: Do you have any sense from the ticket requests what percentage of those are Americans living in London versus British people?
Kirkwood: No, when you fill out the ticket request, nationality was not a question asked.
Livingstone: I can tell you that I didn’t realize I had so many American friends in London until this game was announced. London has become a real sort of second home for many Americans. I’m sure vast numbers have applied for tickets along with vast numbers of Brits who have only ever seen this game in Hollywood films and when it started being broadcast live on TV in Europe.
Kirkwood: I can give you hard numbers. Of the ticket registry, 86% came from the UK. Of that, 14% came from London and the southeast so it’s a true national experience. And therefore I have to assume that although there are a lot of Americans living in the UK, it’s a very diverse group. We also had 2.5% of the request coming from Germany, 2% from Denmark and we were getting requests from as far away as Australia and Argentina.
Tisch: We’ve received directly thru the Giants office about 3,500 requests for tickets and we assume that is from our fans here in the tri-state region.
Q: How are the seats being allocated?
Kirkwood: In terms of stadium allocation, obviously this is the very first game of the series so anything we do will have a level of precedence. Everything we are doing has a degree of seriousness attached to it in terms of decision making. We have made tickets available in blocks to both participating teams. The packages that Mr. Tisch referred to are part of that deal. Obviously, we also have a vested interest in ensuring that as many people from the UK are at the game because we don’t want to have an experience with a lot of people imported in to watch the game. However, at the same time this is a game for Europe as well as hard core fans from both teams. So what we’re trying to do is ensure that those folks who are true fans of the teams, whether that is season ticket holders, members of fan clubs particularly in the UK, are being given preference over other people that apply.
Tisch: We now have information set up on the Big Blue Travel website as well as the Giants website.
Q: I would like David and Osi to comment on what this game means.
Diehl: First off we are obviously very excited for this opportunity. To play in London at Wembley will be a tremendous experience. To hear that within the first 72 hours there were over a half million request for tickets is unbelievable. It will be a very exciting game not only for the Giants organization but for the Dolphins and for London. I know growing up as a kid, I grew up loving the game of football and having a passion for it. Each year the more and more I play that passion grows. To be able to go to London and share that and show it on the field and have a whole new diverse area of fans we can reach, little kids in London, older fans that haven’t really experienced a game – to be able to bring that and show it live and in person is a really great thing. I feel we’ll have a diverse group of fans that are going to follow the game and fall in love with it.
Umenyiora: I think it’s going to be a great experience, especially for me since I was born over there. Apparently my brother just got back from London and he said I’m kind of like David Beckham over there now. Just kidding. It’s going to be a great time.
Q: If they chose not to do these packages, is there any other avenue for a fan to get tickets?
Tisch: I would imagine that there will be some individual tickets for sale and that info will be on the Giants website. We obviously want to keep our fans happy. They are with us every single day and we’ll provide as much info as we can on our website.
Q: How many more tickets are available to Dolphins fans?
Kirkwood: All of this is a work in progress. Starting tomorrow will be the first group of tickets going on sale in the UK. The Giants and Dolphins will go on sale in a matter of days. What we’ve deliberately done is capped it to about half the stadium at this stage so we can actually see where things are going and see how we can satisfy demand and make sure that all parties are kept satisfied.
We’re going to create hundreds of thousands of Giants and Dolphins fans in Europe. So many people pick teams based on the first teams that they have seen. It’s a tremendous sacrifice for both teams to be trailblazers but I’d like to think the reward will be long term and we are working with the city of London to ensure there is a legacy way beyond this one game.
Q: How do you think the Giants would have reacted if they were asked go give up a home game?
Tisch: It probably would have made the decision a bit more difficult but the Dolphins stepped up immediately. They said this is important, we are willing to give up a home game to travel across the pond and do something that is historic. The league reached out to us as the next team and because the Dolphins had agreed already, it was a rather simple decision for us. We also wanted to be part of something historic but the dynamic was already set in place with the Dolphins being the home team.
Q: I assume that if this series continues some day in the future you’ll have to give up a home game.
Tisch: Except that there are 30 teams that will have to go first so it may take a while to go through the system.
Q: There have been some reports that the NFL is considering a 17th game, an international game, every year. If this game is a success do you believe this could happen quickly?
Tisch: Certainly that is something the owners would discuss. We are all anxiously awaiting the start of the international games and will check on the success. Then the owners will get together and see if it is in the best interest of the league. There is so much interest for football that is emerging in lands far a field from the U.S., so my sense is that we could easily add international games to add more excitement and grow the fan base of the NFL.
Q: There has been some talk about possibility of an international Super Bowl. Mayor is this something you would be interested in? Is this a dress rehearsal of sorts?
Livingstone: If there is a chance for Super Bowl, I will come here and lobby for it myself. We’ve had quite a bit of success, we won the Olympics, we won the right to stage a grand part of the Tour de France. It’s become quite obvious to me that bringing great sporting events to a city is the biggest single boost that tourism gets. People come, if they like the city, they’ll come back. We got the same problems in Britain that the states have with obesity, people not exercising enough. Anything that inspires people to do physical activity, we want to build on. If we can get this sport into our schools, get kids engaged, we should do that. If we could ever get the honor to have a Super Bowl, it would be a fantastic thing.
Tisch: You don’t’ mind if we get it in NY first…
Q: Osi, do you still have any family over there?
Umenyiora: I have not been back to London since 1987 and I do not have any family over there. My dad goes back frequently as well as my brother. My mom still has a house over there.
Q: Do you even remember it?
Umenyiora: I remember bits and pieces of it. I remember it raining all the time.
Q: How are the teams going to be involved in marketing this game prior to kickoff?
Kirkwood: One of our objectives is that we have a seamless transition logistically. We want the teams, the coaches, the players to feel that this was a very good experience for them. So we are not asking the teams to do anything that they would not do normally for any regular season game. As of now the plan is to have the teams come in Friday and we’ve been talking to the teams about training needs, the stadium, etc. To a certain extent the game taking place itself will be the biggest promotion. We’ll do a few things during the summer around training camp and maybe bring some British and European media over. Because this is midway through the regular season we are incredibly sensitive to not want to disrupt anything. I am very confident that we will be able to market and promote it effectively, particularly with the help of the city of London. But I’m also very keen that the teams themselves don’t feel any pain.
Tisch: It’s also important to remember that the Dolphins and Giants will have a bye week the week after the game. There may be an opportunity on the Monday or Tuesday after the game for some promotion working with the city of London, to really show how much we appreciated their hospitality and get some of the players into the community.
Q: How closely will the league be monitoring this game as far of the chance of having that extra game every year for everyone?
Kirkwood: In respect to what happens in the future, the league will be monitoring every single aspect of this game. Not only because it’s a major calendar event in the regular season, it’s an inaugural game and there will be a lot of good learning from it. You have the likes of Frank Supovitz, NFL senior VP of events who runs Super Bowl, running the events side of the game. We’re very much from a New York perspective putting the A-team on this and I am very confident this will be a game to remember.
Q: David and Osi – this game is right in the middle of the season, are you worried at all this will be a disruption to your routine.
Diehl: I really don’t think it’s going to be. The fact that we have a home game the week before and then a bye-week following it, I think we’ll have plenty of time to do what we need to do , prepare for the game, get back, get rested. It’s another regular season game, just in a different environment and I don’t think that is really going to effect or disrupt anything.