London could have its own NFL team in “10 to 12 years”
Commissioner Roger Goodell is suggesting that London could have its own NFL team in the next decade or so.
London is expected to have its own NFL team within the next 10 to 12 years, according to a senior league official.
NFL boss Roger Goodell suggested the possibility of a team during the annual game at Wembley last October.
And Mark Waller, NFL head of sales and marketing, said: “The commissioner and I have talked about 10 years so that’s mentally how we’re framing it.
“Would we be hugely disappointed if it’s not 10 and it’s 12? No, but that’s the goal,” he told BBC 5 Live.
“We plan rigorously. There is a view for the future. We’ve taken a west coast team [to London] this year in San Diego and we’ve proved the logistics of that work,” he explained.
“This year we’re going to have games going on in London and Toronto at the same time so we definitely have a way forward.”
Come on, seriously? I think it’s great that NFL is reaching out to other countries and having one game played overseas is fine. But giving London their own team? Then what, eight teams will have to travel to London every year as part of their road games? And the London Fill in Team Name Here will have to travel to the States for eight games?
I don’t like it. There are more than enough teams in the league now – stop expanding.
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Posted in: NFL
Tags: London to get NFL team, NFL in London, NFL London, NFL London team story, NFL team in London, Roger Goodell
I agree. This is a waste of jet fuel.
Who cares, the only good thing about England is the abundance of cheap beer and fugly women.
Really, Fartmark, you have to bag on England? And you butcher their language in the process?
London is a great city with lots to offer. I just don’t think the NFL should put a team there.
Having an NFL team in England is done for the same reason as having the World Cup in the US: money.
There is no american football culture in england so Im not even sure if they can go from 1-2 games a year to a full season especially after the novelty wears off. (Im not gonna even go to the fact that NFL football has about 15mins of action for a 3.5hr show).
The World Cup in the US at least had the ethnic base and the huge grassroots of the sport so you could see the reasoning.
Anyways, lets face it, the brits arent exactly very good at sports once you pass the various football variations.
Take the top 5 team sports in the world and England hasnt even been mediocre at them.
Basketball? They are awful, I dont even think they have a national team. Im sure Cyprus could kick their ass with their girls team.
Volleyball? blah.
Handball? Are you kidding?
Waterpolo? That’s funny.
You have cricket which is the same as baseball so that’s a wash.
As for the women…. brrrrr, whooooa horsey!!
Beer is good though. Not german, czech or belgian quality but still a top 5 beer country.
Rob, did you just speculate that Soccer has more action in it than Football?
I know it’s an opinion…. but yours is wrong.
Anyone who says England has ugly women: Keeley Hazell, Lucy Pinder. You’re welcome.
I don’t see any circumstance under which overseas travel will be cost-efficient enough to justify regular competition between American teams and overseas counterparts, whether in the same league or not. Someone needs to tell both Goodell and the like-minded David Stern that they need to worry about keeping stable the leagues they have now. The global economy right now probably can’t even justify domestic expansion, let alone international expansion.
“We plan rigorously. There is a view for the future. We’ve taken a west coast team [to London] this year in San Diego and we’ve proved the logistics of that work.”
Actually, no, Commish, you haven’t. You do know that expansion teams aren’t good, right? You want to put that type of product in the same place that NFL Europe failed?
Besides, how’s the London team going to like traveling to America eight times a year? And the Seahawks think they have to travel a ton…
Above: subtract”Commish”, add “Mr. Waller”. I should be more careful.
If you didn’t know, there’s a massive following of American Football in the UK. I know loads of people here who follow the season. Personally I try to watch every Bills game I can.
Logistically, they would schedule the away games in blocks I’d have thought. The team would travel to the States for a length of time and play a few away games in succession, so it wouldn’t be so back and forth.
I guess the problem would be persuading draft picks to come to dark damp London for the winter months of a year!
Well we were 2nd in the rugby world cup so we don’t suck at that Rob and cricket is a real sport. We also did very well for such a small country at the oylimpics so just shut up or do some research before making your points
The NFL is a made for tv sport. 15 minutes of actual play and 3 hours of comment and commercials. Thats why this isnt about spreading the sport but about tv money in Europe. They want to put the Bills in Toronto that would kill the CFL which is speading US football across 8 cities in Canada. Basketball and Hockey are international to degree because they arnt bastardized versions of other more international sports. But nfl football comes from rugby and soccer and baseball comes from cricket and for that reason baseball and nfl will never be internatonal. Sorry baseball fans baseball came from England not Abner doubleday as MLB would like you to believe.
an NFL franchise in London would die a slow painful death not least because they would be handicapped by being the only team in the NFL playing a minority sport. I really think the NFL should concentrate on making sure they stay number 1 in their own country. The European Champions League final has been switched to a Saturday for the first time in 2010 making it the first time that any US network channel has ever sat up an taken notice of a club soccer game as something worth showing. Bear in mind this is a game that already has a bigger annual global audience than the Superbowl even though its currently played on a Wednesday.
The London franchise will not last, the problem will be numbers fair enough that the nfl sees crowds of 80 90 thousand people in wembely and they think that its perfect. But what they dont understand is that once a year is fine, once they set up a team they have to compeate with football (soccer) for u americans that dont know there are 15 professional soccer teams in london alone, people arnt goin to waste more money on american footbal tickets, plue the novelty will wear off a bet that if they do start a franchise then they will get 90 thousand first game and by the end of the season it will be below 40 thousand.IT JUST WONT WORK
Who the hell are Keeley Hazell, Lucy Pinder? Good looking women in London? Yeah, and Plaxico can shoot straight…
To all who argued that the travel logistics of an NFL team in England, consider that soccer teams have been traveling the world for years without a problem, and that the flight from England to the East Coast is about the same as the flight from the East Coast to California. Also to steve, how can you say that baseball is not international? Is it because the English suck at it? Check out the World Baseball Classic next year, remember that it is an Olympic sport and look at all the international players in the MLB. That being said, I don’t think the team overseas will work unless it is the only team. They care too much more about soccer over there for multiple franchises to work.
I like the idea of a team in London. Also a team in Toronto would work too. People who disagree are idiots if they try to base it on “logistics”. I’m behind the idea who know maybe one day American football will be a olympic sport, doubt that one though.
I agree with the consensus bout the logistic of traveling, also I doubt many players would want to live there also.
It probably wouldn’t be an expansion, since there are plenty of teams not doing well enough in their current markets.
Chances are, it’d be, say the Rams, Jags, Bills…one of them.
But I do think it’s be hard to work out the logistics. I mean…won’t the team be Jet-lagged like crazy?
Why put a team in London when you could have kept the NFL Europe around. Maybe having a development league over seas would keep players active and keep financial circumstances stable.
Thnk bout it..if inner-London gets a team; the whole U.K. would want to would want a team. A new conference known as the Europe Football Conference would need to be created and the schedules would have to be shifted and the season would have to expand to a 20 game season.
This is a good topic to debate, but why are some of you attacking entire countries? I was embarrased to see some of my fellow Americans’ remarks, then saw some British remarks that were just as ignorant. Baseball IS American, I’m sure cricket was inspired by something else, too! British women are not ugly. Above all else, football (American) is AWESOME! If you don’t like it, don’t watch it! I think a London team could work. The logistics could be very easily worked out and as the marketing would work if they were billed as a British team, not just London.
Hey, tbf i being English must say i love the idea of having a team in England, you may say its really far to get to england but its roughly the same distance from L.A to new york as it is from London to New York, you may say there is no culture for NFL in england but if its there then its going to grow, considering the number of teams there are in our own league (which is more like an amateur league) and the number of natives who watch NFL on tv and at Wembley for the matches, its going to take a lot of assessment anyway to make it acceptable. As an english person i love the idea, maybe relocating an already existing franchise may be better? i dont know its up to the NFL, England would welcome the NFL and to be fair it would be an excellent opportunity
England has different priorities for sport than America thats why we dont care about basketball and baseball. Our sports we really play are
Cricket, Rugby, Football, Boating stuff and Cycling
America likes the sports they created, like we do. Thing with britain is, most of our youth have grown up with American culture, Disney channel and all that, so in the future if you market NFL enough seriously there is a huge fan base, the leagues in england already exist its just a matter of offering them lower quality draft players, higher funding(because it isnt subsidised by the british government like other sports) its a matter of if the NFL want it and if they have the patience to promote NFL. There is a fan base definitely and considering England is about the same size as some US states its not as if we’re at any advantage/disadvantage. All arguments about our culture arent viable, its an individual thing that for the time being is out of our hands.