NFL East to include the London Bobbies
Posted by ZA on October 29, 2008
Could the NFL East expand to include a team from London, England? Yes, that could happen according to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.
NFL expanding to Europe?
Goodell commented on the idea that an NFL team being permanently located in London, “It would be a great thing for the league. If the response keeps continuing this way (from the NFL games played in London the past two seasons), that’s a realistic possibility.”
The NFL has played a regular-season game in London, England each of the past two years. They will continue to play games in London for the next two seasons (2009 & 2010) and have mentioned the possibility about a regular-season game being played in another major European city. Most likely Edinburgh, Scotland or somewhere in Germany. Goodell expanded upon that plan saying the league was “considering the idea” of playing two regular-season games in London each of the next two seasons.
The commissioner makes it sound like the chances are decent that the NFL could add a team in the UK in the near future. Kind of hard to imagine American football being so popular in London that they could support a full-time team. The NFL Europe league lasted for a dozen years, under numerous names, but eventually folded from lack of fan and sponsor support. I imagine many of the same issues would challenge any full-time NFL team that is located in London. They would be competiting for attention with England’s Premier League, which is the dominant league in their national past-time of football (i.e.- soccer).
Plus the NFL owners are unlikely to approve a team in London. It sounds like a great idea to expand their game international, thus bringing in more dollars. But for teams to play regular-season games in London would be a logistics nightmare. Imagine an NFL East that includes the Buffalo Bills, New England Patriots, New York Jets and the London Bobbies (Miami would be relocated to the NFC South). That would be a brutal travel schedule for each team to play one game in London, and would definitely hamstring the Bobbies who would have to spend too much time on airplanes.
Imagine the Patriots making the 6500+ mile round-trip from Boston to London each season to play a regular-season game. A night game in London, that would kickoff early back in the United States. I just can’t see that happening. Commissioner Goodell is most likely just talking a good game, but when push comes to shove the NFL is not going to expand to Europe any time soon. Maybe the NBA, but not the NFL.
A-Train said
I can’t imagine this either. To hard logistically. Good article.
jhuff said
Why do you feel that the nba is more likely to expand overseas? Would it be an entire division or just one team playing in the current Eastern conference.
And, coming from Hawaii, playing in London for an East Coast team is no different than the Patriots going out and playing the Chargers or the 49ers.
Let’s pull in both directions–give Hawaii a team as well
ZA said
JHuff-
It’s more likely the NBA expands into Europe because basketball is already a global sports. American Football is hardly played outside the US, whereas basketball is already, arguably the second most popular sport in the World, behind football (aka: soccer).
I see the NBA eventually adding a few existing European basketball teams. They could try to lure a few of the more historically successful clubs like CSKA (Russia) or Olympiakos (Greece). These four teams would be spread across Europe (Russia, Greece, Spain & Germany?) and play each other in the same division and the rest of the NBA teams.
This move would just be the beginning of the NBA embracing the global expansion that David Stern often talks about. They NBA has been investing in China, which I expect to be in a future wave of expansion.
Regarding Hawaii getting a pro football team. It’s a nice idea, but there are a long list of cities that would get an NFL city before Honolulu does, including Los Angeles, San Antonio and Las Vegas.
ZA
jhuff said
don’t you feel that travel in the nba is a lot tighter than in the nfl, though? i mean, you said that the week was too short for nfl teams to travel and prepare for games in london–russia and greece are a lot further than london.
in your mind, would teams take like 8 game roadtrips to europe and play each team twice on this roadtrip? how long would the european teams stay in america? im just interested in how you’d plan the logistics.