This year has been the year of the trans-atlantic sporting exchange.

• The Ducks and Kings have just returned from spliting a season opening 10 goal series played in London
• The Dolphins and Giants are set to play the first regular season NFL game away from the US when they meet at Wembley Stadium later this month

And in return we give to you

• Dario Franchitti to win the Indy 500 and IRL championship, before moving to NASCAR
• And....<groan> David Beckham

But why?

We (the UK and the US) have our own sports - Football, Baseball, Basketball and Ice Hockey of you and Soccer, Rugby and Cricket (snore) for us. So why try to force our sports on each other with overseas games and exported "stars"?

I gather that both the NHL games and the upcoming NFL game are total sell-outs, but what does that prove? No doubt there are people in the UK who like North American sports - I'm evidence of that myself, but I fear that all of the fans at the games are pre-existing fans. Moving regular games over here is going to attract very few new fans, not least because most American sports are seldom televised at reasonable hours and on reasonable channels as anything other than a novelty.

In my opinion such sport swapping is aimed at one of two goals.

Firstly. To expand the fan base of the American leagues themselves into Europe. As I mentioned before a handful of games are unlikely to make a difference. And for fans over here the amount of land and time seperating the nations is a problem. For example from following the NHL and NFL through the internet and what TV coverage we do get I follow two teams - the Vancouver Canucks and Green Bay Packers. As such I will look for their results on match days, try and see them on TV and look at any news stories concerning them.

However, I am unlikely to celebrate a win nor need consoling after a loss like a ntive of these cities and a life-long of these teams, and am even more unlikely to ever be able to see one of their games in person.

I am a casual fan. People like me do nothing to help a sport. To survive a sport needs hardcore fans. Fans to buy the merchandise, fans through the turnstiles, fans to attract sponsors and fans to pay the wages. Courting foriegn fans will only create more casual fans.

Secondly. To aid the set up and growth of spin-off leagues, such as (the now defunct) NFL Europe and the Elite League (British Ice Hockey). This also won't work. We have already seen this with NFL Europe, and it seems to be on-going with the MLS. First we have the problem of attacting fans. People no matter how much they like a sport, are unlikely to support a completely new team. The kind of history, rivalries and values that inspire the kind of loyalty critical to hardcore fans takes generations to create, and new leagues seems to want to start this overnight. This is time leagues like NFL Europe never got.

The second problem is that of quality. The players in such spin-off leagues (and as far and Hockey goes I'm not including the continental leagues here) aren't going to be of the same level as the players in the main league. As the NFL and NHL have been in existence long before their European/British counterpart, the same with the Premier League and La Liga before MLS. Any fan of these sports through one media or another is going to know of the original league and so know of their quality to the point where the new league is less of a draw. As another anecdote I live in a British city with a fairly good Ice Hockey team (relatively speaking) but I would still wager that your "average" sports fan is more likely to have heard of the Anahiem Ducks than the Sheffield Steelers.

So moving games overseas and signing big names is unlikely to help a sport grow, but it's a nive gesture and a media gimic...