GSL 2021 International Games

The GSL is announcing that it has made deals to have three international games hosted during the 2021 season, in the following cities:






The teams and weeks have not yet been decided, but the order of games and their time slots have been.

The London game will come first, and will be a 1:00 Eastern game (6PM in London).
The Berlin game will come next, and this game will start at 10 AM Eastern time (4PM in Berlin). This game can only feature two teams located in the Eastern time zone, due to the time difference.
The Mexico game will come last, and this game will be a Monday night game, starting at 8:15 Eastern time (7:15PM in Mexico City).

These games will take place between weeks 7 and 14. Week 7 is the earliest possible week for the London game, and week 14 is the latest possible week for the Mexico City game.
I'll decide which games will be when, but if you would like to pitch your team to me, to play in one of these games, feel free to do so.

Would the Sockeyes be abe to play in the London game? They're a west coast team.
Wouldn't be too much of a stretch for west coast teams to play a 1:00 game, plus in the NFL some teams go to London early to get on London time. If possible, I would like to see the Sockeyes play in London this year (prefrebly the week 8 game).

Tim Dixon wrote:Would the Sockeyes be abe to play in the London game? They're a west coast team.
Wouldn't be too much of a stretch for west coast teams to play a 1:00 game, plus in the NFL some teams go to London early to get on London time. If possible, I would like to see the Sockeyes play in London this year (prefrebly the week 8 game).

Yeah, I don't think there would be an issue scheduling this game for week 8 in London. I think I may move the start time back to 2:30PM Eastern time, which is 7:30PM in London, and make this more of a prime time game over seas. That will also work better for two west coast teams playing in London. 2:30 Eastern time is 11:30 on the west coast, which isn't too bad of a start time, considering east coast NFL teams play the 9:30 Eastern games in London.

Officially then, we will have the Seattle Sockeyes @ San Diego Breakers in London in Week 8 at 2:30 PM Eastern time.

This means the Berlin game will take place between week 9 and week 13 (pending the Mexico Monday night game).

As a side note, although the international games are at neutral sites, for fairness in the simulation, the home team in the game will still get their 3 point home field advantage, so that the home team doesn't essentially lose a home game.

Field design for the London game

The Keystones are offering their Week 11 game against Atlanta for the Berlin Game. Is that possible?

If not, Pennsylvania would still like to play internationally this year, possibly the Mexico game if Berlin does not work out.

This is pending approval by the Express owner, but perhaps the Week 13 match OAK @ LA could be moved to Mexico considering Oakland and LA have the two largest Latino fanbases in real life. Also I know from experience Rome, Italy has a large football community (Jags and Ravens fans for some reason) so perhaps a venture in Stadio Olimpico could be next?

On behalf of the Atlanta Flying Fleet, we would be honored to be honored to take part in an International game in Berlin as the road team Week 11 against the Keystones.

zachvought wrote:The Keystones are offering their Week 11 game against Atlanta for the Berlin Game. Is that possible?

If not, Pennsylvania would still like to play internationally this year, possibly the Mexico game if Berlin does not work out.

Rob Holecko wrote:On behalf of the Atlanta Flying Fleet, we would be honored to be honored to take part in an International game in Berlin as the road team Week 11 against the Keystones.

Okay, I'll give Atlanta vs Pennsylvania the game in Berlin.

sfcom1 wrote:Miami will take one of the remaining games.

Mexico would be great or Berlin

John

92Mafia wrote:This is pending approval by the Express owner, but perhaps the Week 13 match OAK @ LA could be moved to Mexico considering Oakland and LA have the two largest Latino fanbases in real life. Also I know from experience Rome, Italy has a large football community (Jags and Ravens fans for some reason) so perhaps a venture in Stadio Olimpico could be next?

I think we should have a compromise here, and you two let me know how you feel about it. The OAK @ LA game makes more sense then the scheduled Miami games, for reasons described above. I would like to make this the Mexico game in week 13, but since it isn't the existing Monday night game for that week, I think the Mexico game will have to move to Saturday night, to give it its own prime time slot.

John, since you kind of get the short end of the stick here, as one of the GUDs field experts, would you like to come up with a design for the field for the Mexico game? I'll give you any team and league logos that you need, since I have all of the high resolution versions, and I can give you the field template for Estadio Azteca. The field design doesn't have to be similar to the other international games, it can be anything you want to come up with.

Official GSL Germany Announcement



Field Design

Official GSL Mexico Announcement




No field design yet; John is in charge of this one. I don't expect it will follow the Europe template.

Will the league be requiring, providing or permitting the teams to add patches for the teams in international games?

sfcom1 wrote:

Austin Snelick wrote:Official GSL Mexico Announcement




No field design yet; John is in charge of this one. I don't expect it will follow the Europe template.

You ask and you shall recieve. :-)

This is great! I'll have this posted for the game no later than tomorrow.

Rob Holecko wrote:Will the league be requiring, providing or permitting the teams to add patches for the teams in international games?

I had thought about it, but I didn't think I'd add them. If there's going to be uniform patches, they should follow a consistent theme, but be unique to the city. I've had a few ideas in my mind that I may add to the uniforms later on. There's still many weeks before the first international game, so I'm sure by then I'll have been tinkering around enough to put something on the uniforms. That, or I can turn this into another league wide design contest; one that would span a shorter period of time.
I'm going to need to think on that for a little first.

Is there any international games available or are all 3 locations played at once?

Ethanpancakes wrote:Is there any international games available or are all 3 locations played at once?

These are the 3 international games for this season.

Next season, when the league expands to 32 teams, there will be 5 International games. Three in the same locations as this year, one in Italy, and another still undecided, but possibly Brazil.

I might suggest Tokyo for one of the five international games next year.