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how about a super bowl figure set, eh?

I would say that it's not universal enough, but then again, we had TLG trying to peddle the NBA sets to us as well as in America.

I think a SuperBowl set would flop. Too short-lived and too narrow of a focus group.

Josh

I could sum it up in one word:
BORING.



Or, Fleshies.

Yes. Very boring. They tried Futebol and Basketball, and at the very least you could "play" with the sets. Playing football with minifigs would be nigh impossible...

Boring?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31157752@N04/3247444849/

Just a little scene I made for a friend with Dan Marino being hit by Lawrence Taylor. Sorry for the bad picture, it was taken with my phone.

If there is one thing I am learning about Lego and its fans, there is no limit to the fun you can create, I would love to see some football guys, but the detail needed to create a proper athlete is beyond lego. For mine, every limb, both front and back torso, and helmet all need printing to make it realistic. Would be nice though!

Hmm,

I'd love to see more sports figs, but licensing has to be a huge problem. I could see these as having cross-over appeal to collectors outside of the AFOL world (like how the SW theme brought in a bunch of SW fans). Licensing would be a huge pain, though - I'm not sure how successful the NBA figs were. And did they have soccer figs that were patterned after real people in one of the larger sets? I know they had stickers in one of the sets I got so you could make your own country's team, but the faces were generic. Of course, if they did license Football (American), Baseball, or Hockey figs they'd be fleshies.

The other thing is, as noted above, the other sports figs were incorporated into games. Not sure how they could do this with baseball or football. I did wish they had done a hockey set with figs rather than the technic/bionicle thing they did. Something like this:

but with figs. I've seen a couple of MOCs along these lines.

There was this old football game when I was a kid where the "field" vibrated and the little plastic figures would move downfield. It was kind of silly, though, IIRC.

Bruce

Bruce N H wrote: I did wish they had done a hockey set with figs rather than the technic/bionicle thing they did.

Something like this, you mean?

Shows how much I was paying attention.

Bruce

you guys are largely missing the point, which is probably my fault.

I'm not talking about a set like that soccer/NBA rubbish.

I'm thinking something more like a shell promo. Just make a commeorative set of figs with the colors and numbers of the winning team, sell them off the following day. It'd be huge! Anything in black and gold is selling like mad right now.

I'd be curious to see how well the Sports themes sold. The soccer was semi enjoyable, and the basket ball (even though I hate the sport) was surprisingly fun. Both were creative in the way they were made. I think the bigger problem is that video games have a strangle hold on sports games. Sure some official liscensed teams or players would sell, but I'm not so sure Lego would persue that avenue. Is the price to get liscenses from the NFL and NFLPA beneficial? The answer is 'yes' if that is their main focus, which it isn't.

Now a rod hockey game would have been fun. They still sell. Here is an attempt of mine before the Technic Hockey crap came out.

Rod Hockey

Unfortunatly, the pieces available made actual play way less playable that was acceptable. Here's a shot at the rod construction.

Rod Construction

As big as the NFL is here in the states, I'm thinking there are some legal/financial reasons why this has never come to be.

Bruce N H wrote:

Shows how much I was paying attention.

Bruce

And, of course, I fully knew about this set as we discussed the utilty of those hocky pad pieces as armor, and these were used in a MOC I recently featured. My brain is going. In my defense, lame as it is, I was thinking of the sets like this.

As to TW's idea, I'm not sure how well that would work. You'd have to have these things in production for months to be ready to sell the winning team the day after the game, which means you'd either have to be a very good guesser or make sets for all the teams and then throw away the bulk of your merchandise. Otherwise these would come out months after the game, when they wouldn't be big sellers.

Bruce

JoshWedin wrote:I think a SuperBowl set would flop. Too short-lived and too narrow of a focus group.

Josh

Well you could pare it down to just a few add-on sets to accompany the larger field with actual Football action, like Superbowl Studios: Commercial Assortment, Superbowl Studios: Movie Preview Assortment and the ever popular Superbowl Studios: Half-Time Assortment. The biggest problem would be all the licen$ing fee$, I mean have you ever tried to get into a Football game for a reasonable price?

Bruce N H wrote:There was this old football game when I was a kid where the "field" vibrated and the little plastic figures would move downfield. It was kind of silly, though, IIRC.

Electric Football silly? LOL! See for yourself here (and a movie here). Actually, this would be cool to reproduce as a MOC with magnetic minifigs and a green playfield. Oh, well. I'll leave it to someone else to try that.

As for NFL as a licensed LEGO theme... I don't think it will happen anytime soon. Bandwagoning is not a LEGO practice.

bruce wrote:I'm not sure how successful the NBA figs were.

They wound up in dollar stores, and the backboards ended up in bonus boxes.

I understand the soccer theme was successful in Europe, but that seemed more playable and wasn't based on expensive licenses and player likenesses.

At any rate, I don't think there's much call for a Super Bowl minifig set in any configuration. It's a yearly flash in the pan. It's fun to watch, but nobody wants to buy toys about it after the fact.