Updated throughout the day with quick takes from staff.
The Patriots and Bucs are playing their game in London on Sunday, which means it’s time to talk about an NFL franchise in the UK … again.
From Ian Rapoport:
Robert Kraft hopes an NFL team will be in 10 years: “It’d be the right thing to do,” he said
And NFL PR’s Greg Aiello:
Commish agrees. Just said at Global Sport Summit that London he could see an NFL franchise in UK someday. […]
Not considering Super Bowl in London until at least there’s an NFL franchise, Commish says.
Well, hows about this: If they plan on moving a team over to England, they’ll have to navigate their sea vessel around MY DEAD BODY. Ain’t no way REAL FOOTBALL is moving to Europe.
Although the second part of What Goodell said — no Super Bowl in the UK until they have a team — is nice. Because it means, essentially, that there will never be a Super Bowl in the UK. I realize the NFL so desperately wants to beat the NBA on the European Front, but it makes little sense to throw a team overseas. Sure, London can fill up a stadium for one game a season, but can it support a franchise for an entire season? Or an entire decade? Jacksonville can’t even support a team, and it’s in AMERICA. Where we freaking love football. Plus, there are other cities that should be way ahead of London in the franchise pecking order. Like L.A. Or, I don’t know, anywhere else that is in North America and not named “Jacksonville.”
11 comments
Comments
Jacksonville
Not only is it in America, where we love football, but it also happens to be in a football crazy region and state. So if they are having trouble supporting their team, London seems unlikely to be able to support a team once the original novelty wears off.
"It was almost like if Harry didn't call it, it wasn't real." - Jayson Stark
by Chris Haines on Oct 23, 2009 11:20 AM EDT reply actions
Well, it’s also in the south, which doesn’t really care about pro sports. Having said that, the south HAS to care more about NFL than England, I’d imagine.
by Chris Mottram on Oct 23, 2009 11:28 AM EDT up reply actions
Agreed
They may be much more college football crazy there (understandably so given their choices), but I’d think that they have more passion for the NFL than anywhere outside the US.
"It was almost like if Harry didn't call it, it wasn't real." - Jayson Stark
by Chris Haines on Oct 23, 2009 12:13 PM EDT up reply actions
Logistics
And how many miles is London from here??? It would make more sense to start a franchise in Canada or even Mexcio than anywhere in Europe. You’d have to deal with players being seriously jetlagged all the time. East coast to West coast is bad enough, but what about a West coast team having to go to England.
by Dkeat on Oct 23, 2009 12:44 PM EDT reply actions
Of course you know..
they already have “REAL FOOTBALL” in Europe…
by Razreshat on Oct 23, 2009 2:17 PM EDT reply actions
Going To Completely Disagree
Huge caveat: i think moving an NFL team to London would fail. I think eventually the novelty would wear off.
That said, I think the league office and the owners desperately want to do this. The NFL has completely saturated the American market; the NFL draft draws higher ratings than most other league’s actual games. The only place the NFL can expand is overseas. And the NFL owners want to be a GLOBAL BRAND like the NBA has become.
They’re obviously laying the groundwork to see if a move to London would be feasible. They were talking about trying regular season games in the near future, which is a clear test to see whether they can sell out more than a game per year. If they ramp that up over the next decade to 8 games/season…well that would give them a good idea of whether London could reasonably support a team. As for the distance, London is no farther from the East Coast than the West Coast is. Scheduling West Coast to London games would be tough, but the rest of it wouldn’t be as bad as it sounds at first blush.
And there’s no reason that this would mean they can’t also move a team to LA/somewhere else in North America. The Bills are already exploring playing games in Toronto. The Raiders could possibly move to LA. And the Jaguars could move to London.
Again, I think it’s unlikely this would succeed over a long period, but I wouldn’t underestimate the NFL’s ambition to take over the world.
by Matt O'Brien on Oct 23, 2009 2:34 PM EDT reply actions
We can’t even currently support all the teams we have here in the states. Yet you’re suggesting they move a team (JAX) to L.A. AND add a whole new franchise for London? I dunno. Maybe it’ll happen someday, but certainly not in the next 10 years as Robert Kraft said.
by Chris Mottram on Oct 23, 2009 2:37 PM EDT up reply actions
The fact that we can’t support all the teams we have in the States is an argument for why they’d want to move one overseas, not against it. There are so many struggling teams that I think they could easily move two of them – one to LA and the other to London (with the Bills a strong contender to move down the block to Toronto).
Outside of Toronto, I don’t think there’s a Canadian city that would be an obvious addition for the NFL (Vancouver is too close to Seattle). And besides LA, I don’t think there are any major American markets that don’t have a team. And frankly, Mexico City isn’t rich enough to attract the type of business the NFL wants. So from a purely business-perspective, London isn’t an insane move. Add to that the chance to plant your flag in a totally untapped market…I think the opportunity is too much for the NFL owners to resist.
And I had a typo in the earlier post; the NFL wants to have two regular season games in London in the near future. That is a clear test of whether people will come out more than once a year. If that succeeds, they could have 4 games in London, and then within the decade, possibly 8. That would be a risk-free way to test whether Brits would actually want to watch NFL games. And the entire time, they’d be exposing the British audience to the games more and more (and I’m sure they’d concurrently try to get NFL Network on British satellite TV). If by 2019, that is all working, and there’s a team particularly struggling…I think it’s realistic that they’d move them to London.
That’s a lot of ifs. Like I said, I don’t think this will work. But I think the NFL really wants to do this. And it’s not quite as far-fetched as it initially sounds.
by Matt O'Brien on Oct 23, 2009 2:57 PM EDT reply actions
The fact that we can’t support all the teams we have in the States is an argument for why they’d want to move one overseas, not against it.
“Alright, owners: These teams aren’t doing well in the country that loves this sport more than any other. Recommendations?”
“We could move them to a country that doesn’t give a shit about the sport … would that work?”
“BRILLIANT! England it is!”
by Chris Mottram on Oct 23, 2009 3:51 PM EDT up reply actions
The fact that Jax and Oakland can’t sell out says more about how expensive tickets are than anything else. It’s not as if those franchises don’t have people who still follow them; just not enough people willing to shell out big money to do so.
London is a major financial center. There are plenty of douchebag i-bankers/corporations who would jump on football tickets as a cool/trendy thing. A team in London would be much more financially viable than a small market US team.
And the whole idea is to get them to give a shit about the sport. To grow that market. 20 years ago do you think people in Europe cared at all about the NBA? The NFL is trying to get them interested, and then maybe get them a team.
“Alright, we can move team X from one small shitty US market to another small shitty US market…or we can try to expand our game to a global audience in a very big, very rich city.”
by Matt O'Brien on Oct 23, 2009 4:41 PM EDT up reply actions
I think you’re underestimating how much the NFL wants to take over the world. They want NFL Network to get big enough to eventually get rid of their deals with the networks, cutting out the middlemen. And they want to expand their market. The only way to expand the market is overseas. They are desperate to do that. I’m skeptical about whether it would work, but I think they will try to make it happen.
by Matt O'Brien on Oct 23, 2009 4:57 PM EDT up reply actions
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