The National Gridiron League is a professional football league of Australia scheduled to launch in 2016/17.

The National Gridiron League is a professional football league of Australia scheduled to launch in 2016/17.

The National Gridiron League (NGL) is a professional American Football league located in Australia. The NGL will be the highest level of competition in Australia for American football.

The league will launch with nine teams, which will be located in two separate states.

The state of Queensland will have four teams, and the state of New South Wales will have five teams. In 2016, the league will feature a 18 week regular season, which is scheduled to run from August to December.

Each team will play 16 games with at least two bye weeks.

Following the regular season, six teams will compete in the league’s three-week playoffs.

The league will host all games at premier stadiums around Australia and will televise a selected game in each week in each state.

The National Gridiron League (NGL) is being established with the key aim of developing the sport in Australia.

The business model of the NGL has been in planning for over two years and has taken into account numerous successful components of sports league business models around the world.

Despite numerous constraints in a diverse country such as Australia, including a very large geographic scope with very limited demographics, we believe there is significant opportunity in Australia with the evolution of technology and other innovations that bring the world closer.

The NGL is independent of the existing infrastructure of American football in Australia however we believe that the existing organizations will significantly benefit from NGL marketing, player and management development programs.

We are confident NGL marketing campaigns will create additional awareness of the sport in Australia, which will also benefit the recruitment and funding opportunities for local leagues and clubs. As the NGL is investing in recruiting a number of high level coaching staff, officials and players there is scope for existing organizations to utilize these resources for their development.

The NGL will kick off in 2016 with four teams in Queensland and five teams in New South Wales.

The league has expansions plans for four additional teams in Victoria in 2017/18 and further expansion into South Australia and Western Australia.

Following extensive consultation and research, the NGL has developed a very exhaustive funding and revenue model that has been designed for sustainable operation in a challenging environment.

All aspects of operation will be constantly reviewed for the next two years before first kick off to ensure sustainability and ongoing success of Gridiron in Australia.

The NGL does not respond to individual posts or comments. All comments or suggestions can be forwarded tomedia@nglaustralia.com.au

Source: http://www.nglaustralia.com.au

By Fernando Godinho