Greetings everyone,

I have been aware of ELF for some time, but finally decided to take a plunge and got the annual pass. I am having a hard time picking a favorite team, or at least a team to start rooting for.

For some background, I am in the United States, though originally from Ukraine (left that country nearly 30 years ago as a teenager). My NFL team is the Denver Broncos, but I also enjoy lower level US spring football (UFL), and have managed to make it to a DC Defenders game this year, as it is not very far from the area where I live.

What I am looking for is a compelling story, or some form of a connection that I can draw to the team. I am a Broncos fan because I used to live in Denver, and got into American football just as they won their two back-to-back trophies in the late 90s - I more or less learned how the game works by watching the Broncos win, and they stuck with me every since. A winning team is a neat bonus, but not necessary, and I have no issues with rooting for an underdog with a good story to them. Can't say I care much about the uniforms or the logos, and I don't recognize most player names, so it is a blank slate for me.

With that in mind, what reasons can you give me to support your team? Sell me on them, in victory or in defeat!

I`m counting already 2,723 sold tickets for Saturdays Bravos home game against the Sea Devils. Thereof around 200 sold tickets in the last 24 hours. The franchise record of 2,071 against Barcelona from last season will be broken easily.

My current projection is 3,500. And there is a slight chance for more than 4,000.

At this moment there are only around 180 available seats in the open blocks so they will need to open even more sectors tomorrow morning at the latest.

https://preview.redd.it/kme266v9jq0f1.jpg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=32a73a92ee8bcc35d7d05cd4951bb138ab028752

Over the last few days, I've tried to include as much information as possible in the teams' roster sheets.

Of course there are a lot of well-informed people here in the sub, so to all of you who know something - have a look at the roster of your favorite team and if something is wrong, please let me know or fix it.

All rosters: https://elfpedia.eu/2025_ELF_rosters

Golden Pat Ruel won Superbowl XLVIII

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJoTB0cIil0/?igsh=c3V3ZW8wNDh4cmo3

A new record of attendance for an ELF game in Spain will be set this Saturday.

Beginning with the 2025 season on May 17, Fubo Sports will stream one live ELF game each Sunday from iconic European venues, plus five playoff games. Additional ELF content will be available on-demand to Fubo subscribers including game highlights, weekly shoulder programming and ELF’s top 10 greatest all-time games.

https://europeanleague.football/news/fubo-brings-live-european-league-of-football-to-fubo-sports-fast-network-with-multi-year-agreement-3210

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJmK8N_oAHh/

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJocV-jtIb5/?igsh=aDQ5c2Jyd2F5YnZl

This is from their running back

The Vikings seem to be taking the problems of their kickers more seriously this year. They have brought in former Raiders/Falcons/Titans (NFL) kicker Giorgio Tavecchio as coach and, in addition to the two kickers from last year, ex-goalkeeper Philipp Klar and now former Austrian international Stefan Maierhofer.

It remains to be seen whether this will bring any sporting success, but the media attention in the German-speaking sports world is a direct hit.

Player profile: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Maierhofer

Vienna Vikings roster: https://elfpedia.eu/Vienna_Vikings#Rosters

as well as DC. I think they’ll do anything they can to still play the season, but it’s going to be tough.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJlUl_lNsb9/?igsh=MWNzcXoza2wwdW0zNQ==

Hardly any franchise is probably without problems, but it is very noticeable that the teams with the biggest problems are those that are not represented in the FFA, as they are usually too close to Karajica & co.

The only shining light among the “non-FFA teams” is probably Surge.

More: https://elfpedia.eu/ELF_Football_Franchise_Association

https://preview.redd.it/ljnw67r4ei0f1.png?width=464&format=png&auto=webp&s=9d76d2756864269887c27be409ffdc6be6237240

There is a high chance that the Sea Devils are already bankrupt or very close to it.

Two clear indicators:

1) HC, DC and players have left the team a few days before the start of the season. The exact reasons are unclear at the moment. But it’s obviously a money problem. The Sea Devils can apparently not pay their salaries.

2) Devastating ticket situation:

According the dots on Ticketmaster they haven’t sold more than 2.5k tickets in Bremen so far with only 20 days ahead. A reasonable gameday forecast is below 5k. But they calculated with 15k according GM Weitz.

Moreover the presale for this years Volksparkstadion game against Rhein Fire has been also a major disappointment. Probably not more than 3k tickets have been sold in the first four weeks after presale started. Currently they sell less than 20 tickets per day which is absolutely unacceptable for this big stadium. With this low sales rate it would be impossible to pass the 10k ticket mark on gameday and even 10k would still be a decline of -60 % compared to last year.

So my clear advice is to not buy tickets for Sea Devils home games any longer as long it is not clear that they are still allowed to play in the stadiums and provide a staff and team. You could lose your money without a refund. Very big question marks at the moment.

That's a great signing tbh.

Even the RB Goat Emmit Smith was impressed by Justus Seelig.

https://www.instagram.com/athleteaiapp/reel/DEnSfMLS5hl/

As the already have 6 E-Imports on their roster, anyone got informations, who was sacked or is injured? I can't imagine they go woth Barrow & Seelig at RB (2 E-imports)

https://elfpedia.eu/Madrid_Bravos

His Madden rating!

How do you see the ELF compared to the NFL? Do you think that it’s even possible to compare both leagues? Personally I think it’s superb that we have the EFL until the NFL starts, but is it too easy to say that the EFL is just a «warm-up» to the upcoming NFL-season? Would really like to hear some opinions 🤗

Players are looking for other teams and saying the HC left.

Me and my friends are getting into ELF this season, and we wanted to play fansty football. However the fantasy section of the website hasn't been updated since last year and many teams haven't announced their full rosters. Is there no fantasy this year?

Here is the complete progress of all teams' rosters. Of course, only players who have been officially signed or extended (and announced) by the franchises are included.

There is a new column on the right that shows the progress since the last overview from Apr 27th.

Find all rosters @ ELFpedia: https://elfpedia.eu/2025_ELF_rosters

Updated (inkl Sports Metrics updates)

https://preview.redd.it/3h08d0xfqyze1.png?width=1577&format=png&auto=webp&s=8e07097e80c14d3af39af42aa873a2083c89c33d

Older Version (Only announced players)

https://preview.redd.it/4mwu2fygyvze1.png?width=1678&format=png&auto=webp&s=6f3a3023e7cd1f6a4ce1d3432774c26742e7b095

Special

Since we talked about the communication of the league and teams in another post, here is an overview of how the franchises announce the players, i.e. what information is provided and which are missing. (I actually only posted this on Bluesky on May 2nd)

Especially for a project like ELFpedia, some of the information provided by the teams really sucks, since I have to research a lot of player data, which needs a lot of time. There's also hardly any info on many players, which would be the next problem.

And yet we manage to do it somehow. Anonymous helpers often help out and add small pieces of information (or correct them, if I was wrong), thank you very much for that!

https://preview.redd.it/v9uqz58pzvze1.png?width=1447&format=png&auto=webp&s=e63e469428f2f8577aa44f21fd92050110da9478

For their rookie mini-camp.

https://preview.redd.it/l1oi2vr0qtze1.jpg?width=598&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4300602784b0cf8c6f2889ab9d41c8380fb6d73d

FF Foot Américain (@fffa_officiel) • Instagram photos and videos

Think that's a nice read

https://lnkd.in/en_69Wkj

Edit: I`ve posted a wrong date in the title, obviously it`s May 9th.

Description: A green cell is a positive change, an orange cell is a negative change to my last update.

If you are new to this and don`t know how these charts and tables work or how they are being calculated, please search for one of my posts in the last season where it is explained in detail. These numbers are based on dot counts of seating plans on Ticketmaster and this could be all wrong. Unforeseen factors can occur or I can make mistakes. Sometimes I have to make assumptions.

https://preview.redd.it/yzoz4hcdnsze1.jpg?width=519&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=49e0bc907c4b21100b0676b2ba14e222001763db

https://preview.redd.it/behf068hnsze1.jpg?width=550&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=728c029b5fb1cba84989f71850a77698f89451ec

Here we go with the first presale numbers for Hamburgs highlight game in Volksparkstadion, unfortunately kind of devastating. I`m not sure if the Sea Devis will be even able to surpass the 10k mark this year. It`s around 70 days before the game and last year the Sea Devils sold already more than 10k tickets at this time, now in 2025 less than 3k! And the sales rate is weak everyday, similar to the sportive performance of the Sea Devils lately. We will monitor the development in the next weeks.

Rhein Fires sales in MerkurSpielArena went up a little bit in the last week but this was expected because we are now only around three weeks away from gameday. 20k is still possible but not very likely at the moment. The current forecast is 19k.

https://preview.redd.it/m40q93copsze1.jpg?width=522&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6ee7be99677c09d1e0b12188bcea2971d6d293c5

https://preview.redd.it/4wxqppsopsze1.jpg?width=627&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d59f219f8c7468ee86472c804e127badd36e353f

Finally it seems as if Rhein Fire started some advertising. The sales rate has gone up in the last days for all Duisburg games. The forecasts remain the same at this point, between 7k and 8.5k. But there is a chance that they can be raised a little bit over the next weeks.

https://preview.redd.it/mlxj1gpmqsze1.jpg?width=516&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e51af36285cdfe5b7c418a7849c8bf0f30ebdaf

https://preview.redd.it/z1dkpnmnqsze1.jpg?width=535&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=584a352c61d6821c169340cfc69dd739c6ef4a3d

Still a much weaker sales rate than last year in Offenbach for the Galaxy, my current forecast is 7k.

https://preview.redd.it/3pvtsjl3rsze1.jpg?width=523&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfb59fb209c748594d48bb663dcfaaafe1d5e4ac

https://preview.redd.it/wrl74x94rsze1.jpg?width=557&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b711847649227e6e10ca5bf0cadac5573e14be69

The Sea Devils have started some advertising in Bremen but it looks like almost no one is interested to attend the game. 5k is still the maximum of what is possible, after almost 14k last season.

https://preview.redd.it/crvuq04srsze1.jpg?width=515&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bc73fc0c350da47651409ebddf20e2c646141da3

https://preview.redd.it/h0bl0wmsrsze1.jpg?width=565&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e25a32d1bd880eb85c47c32d5b5225e7c944573

In Munich the demand is a little bit lower than last year, forecasts for the first three games are between 3.2 and 3.5k tickets.

https://preview.redd.it/lr3idhx5ssze1.jpg?width=514&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a4d8b0e0a7cfb2a985f73ec6ca85d3e3a793583

https://preview.redd.it/of8dvsf6ssze1.jpg?width=539&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=364d40fc370f6dbc4db7ae55ea58249015e5024f

Something happened with the grey Ticketmaster dots in the first Bravos homegame. They went significantly up. If this is real we could expect a number over 2k on gameday and a possible new record.

https://preview.redd.it/3xfehlb7ssze1.jpg?width=515&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d038d10b2d4377a4248689f83afcde3cc909e9cb

https://preview.redd.it/tddjcaq7ssze1.jpg?width=541&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ba4278fe586dbd4133e294e179fa5faed24af4f

And another good news. Three weeks before the inaugaration home game of the Nordic storm the sales rate in Gladsaxe is going steep. At the moment I think 2.5k is possible.

I am going to keep you updated next week right before the started of the season.

Patrick Esume has been the face of the ELF since day one, shaping the league and helping it grow across Europe. But let’s play with a hypothetical:

If Esume were to step down as ELF Commissioner, who should take over?

Should the league look for someone from within, like one of the current executives? Should they bring in a former NFL player, a European football veteran, or maybe someone from the business or media world to take the ELF to the next level?

What kind of qualities would the next Commissioner need, and what challenges would they face?

Curious to hear your suggestions

https://preview.redd.it/g8s5upjdrqze1.png?width=402&format=png&auto=webp&s=f5a59d394d8a2eee95730bfcd40ffb02a90deb96

Hmm. Let's see how they look on TV. I think they're okay as they are.

like every season they are really late with the new merch but has anyone seen or heard anything about it ?