A Lot of Factors Could Complicate NFL Expansion Into London

Roger Goodell said to uh Marcus Kuhn, who by the way, uh, I used to cover as a defensive tackle for the New York Giants, Marcus is now working for a German television station, um, and I want to get the quote right because I don't want to misquote the, uh, the commissioner.

He said, uh, I have no doubt.

That's the quote, that there will be NFL teams, teams located overseas, uh, at some point in time.

Uh, I, I think that's beyond false.

I'm, uh, I'm curious what your take is on the NFL one day having a franchise on the other side of the pond.

Or so there are a couple of things, you know, yeah, right, whatever.

Yeah, so, so there are a couple of things on this.

Like, I, I think the first thing, um, is that this has been a goal of theirs for a long time.

So when they launched the International Series in 2007, the hope was they would have a team in Europe, um, and in London specifically within 15 years.

That was the goal.

Obviously, they missed the mark on that.

So why did they miss the mark?

They missed the mark because of the logistics.

And it's not about planning out like, OK, how does this work?

Like how do we, how can we slot week 4 versus week 8?

I think they believed that they could probably make the regular season work.

The issue was what happens when you get to one-off situations in the playoffs, where Seattle is playing at London in the wild card round, and what sort of competitive inequity does that create?

Um, and then, I think there's also little things that no one's gonna, that no fan thinks about.

Like, you have 2 guards go down in a game, and now, uh, you know, on Tuesday, you, you wanna work out 5 free agent guards, right?

How do you do that?

Like it's difficult, you know, like there's logistical things that like just make it, I think it would, it would be hard to pull off.

Now, that said, they did start.

To work on stuff like that.

And one thing that I, I know, I don't know how much this has been out there, but there was a point where the Falcons were looking at building a new facility closer to downtown.

If you've ever been to Atlanta, Atlanta's practice facility, the Falcons' practice facility is 1 hour north of Atlanta.

So, the idea was that the league could come in and buy the Flowery Branch facility.

And then the Falcons would build a new facility closer to downtown, and then Flowery Branch would become the US headquarters of the London team.

And then what they would, what they would do is like the operations, football operations would more or less run out of Atlanta.

And so when you needed to bring in guys for workouts, that sort of stuff, you're in a place where everyone can fly direct to and then fly direct to London from there.

So they've, they've given it that much thought, you know what I mean, where the idea of doing these things is there.

I think actually pulling it off would be.

I mean, I think it would take advances in air travel, quite frankly.

So like, I think that that's sort of what, what would, what would, um, what would need to happen.

And then, here's the other piece.

And I think this is the most important piece.

Um, so, if you're gonna create expansion teams, if you're gonna go to 34, 36 teams, the threshold has to be.

That You're gonna grow the pie to use Jerry Jones's, uh, word, um, to a point where 1/34 or 1/36 of that pie is bigger than 1/32.

In other words, you need to grow the pie to the point where you can cut it 2 or 44 more ways and wind up with a bigger piece.

So what does that mean?

Like, going overseas with teams is going to need to lead to exponential financial growth, period.

And so, here's what I wrote on this.

I, I think it's not gonna happen for a couple of reasons.

One is a little bit conspiratorial for me.

I mean, you're looking at all these teams, Buffalo, Cleveland, Chicago, um, basically, any team who's had an outdoors.

Thestadium built between 1925 and 2002 is getting a new domed stadium, right?

And what we've seen is an inability like Chicago is, is negotiating with Indiana against Illinois, and that's where we're at.

There's really outside of San Antonio, Albert, no real expansion threat now that the league has pulled the trigger and moved to Los Angeles and has put two teams in Los Angeles.

You could say San Antonio because it's the, I think it's the largest American city without an NFL team.

Um, You could say maybe San Diego and Saint Louis are, are options because you'd be going back to a place that has had an NFL franchise.

But I think the allure of a place like London, at least makes talking about this .

Uh, a little bit more interesting when these teams are going to state legislators and local politicians, and trying to get money to renovate their stadiums.

One team in particular that's doing that at the end of this season, lease expiring in January of 2027, is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Albert, and their owners also are the majority stakeholders in what?

Manchester United OK, you know, uh, and Tampa Bay is also building the Rays a new stadium.

So are they just like, you know what, um, I'm gonna start going over there and seeing what that looks like just to say that you could say it, right?

I mean, is that better than, is, is that a better, quicker, and more lethal way to get what you want out of your current locale than what the Bears are doing right now, which just seems insane to me .

Yeah, I mean, LA obviously was a stalking horse forever, you know, so.

I mean, losing LA , I mean, how many teams threatened to move to LA?

The Vikings did, the Raiders did, the Rams did and went, the Chargers did and went.

Um, I think, did the Saints at one, no, that's wrong, because the Saints after Katrina never threatened to leave, um, but there have been, there, there were a lot of teams that threatened to go to LA, right.

Yeah , so, I mean, having that out there, I think definitely would make some sense.

I, for, for, from, from, for them and for their purposes.

Um, yeah, I mean, I, I think having that out there is not horrible for them.

Another thing is that, and I'm giving the NFL credit, it could be one of those things like LA too, like where it's like, all right, like we'll use this as a threat for 10 years and then we'll actually go.

Here's why, yeah, and here's why I don't think they're actually gonna go, uh, right, but I think, oh, you know what the other part of that is though too.

The other part of that is like for people who followed the LA thing, they weren't gonna go back there until it was absolutely right, you know what I mean, like, because they didn't want to screw it up again, and this is one thing I will give Jerry Jones credit for, and he was like a visionary with was he insisted on the Rams project, right, because he said.

You can't just build like some run of the mill stadium in that city.

Like it has to be spectacular.

It has to host Super Bowls.

It has to be the biggest stage.

And there has to be an owner there who has the financial wherewithal to invest in the market.

And so he wanted Stan Kroenke to go because Stan Kroenke is one of the wealthiest owners in the league, because he'd be able to invest back in the market.

He'd be able to build that palace that would create this.

You know, cause he, what he didn't want, and I think Jerry was right to think this way, is like that LA would get bored with the team and then in 2025 years , you'd be where the Rams and Raiders were in the mid-1990s, right?

Um, the, and I think the approach, my point is that I think the approach would be similar with London.

It's like if we're gonna go, we need to make sure we get everything right.

The other part of this too is that, and, and I'll give the NFL credit for this, uh, Goodell has very seldom waded into uncharted waters, right?

And I think what's interesting right now is that the WNBA is in the process of expanding to 18 teams.

The MLS, I looked this up for the column that I wrote, added a team a year on average between 2005 and 2025.

That's wild.

Um, the NHL.

is now on a, on an expansion kick.

The NBA is exploring an expansion kick.

So, and, and I'm not saying it has to be an expansion team, but the other part of this is that I think that there's no way the NFL puts a team over in a foreign country that's not Canada, um.

Without letting another league try and mess it up first, right?

So it'd be like Vegas.

It would be exactly like Vegas, yes, yeah, because they made me Vegas was thorny, right?

And then the NHL went and it worked, and then the NFL let the Raiders go, said, perfect, yeah, let's do it.

And I think that's the other part of it.

I, I think that we're gonna see some, you know, do all these MLS franchises survive.

Right, I mean, do all of these WNBA franchises survive, and I, I think, but that is like how much of that is motivated just by the fee, by the expansion fee that the, the, the, the, the owners want to have more cash coming in to support their own operations.

So I mean like what do you hear about like Vegas and Seattle like as expansion cities in the NBA?

Isn't it like 8 billion or something like that?

The expansion fee is incredible.

Like what they're gonna charge those those owners to.

To buy teams, you know.

And then what happens to that money?

Well, that's, I mean, that's liquid for those guys, you know what I mean?

Like, those, those other 30 owners in the NBA are suddenly just gonna come into, and I don't know, do the math.

What is that, 250 million apiece?

Just for just for letting them in, you know, it'd be a half, that'd be a half billion dollars apiece just by saying like, yeah, you two can come in.

Um, my thought then is, you know, the NFL is just gonna, they're gonna be like, you guys try to expand.

You guys try a team in London and then if it works great, like we'll do what we do, which is just, you know, yeah, we'll just, you know, waltzz in there like Vince McMahon and be like, OK, and I'm gonna go and sit waltz in there like it was our idea in the first place, yeah.

But what's funny about it is, um, I think that some of these owners are like there, there's dealing with a foreign country on a basis of that you're hosting one special thing there a year versus dealing with a foreign country on a day to day basis, and I think that what those relationships are gonna be much different, right?

Yeah, what happens when the team is bad, you know what I mean?

And like here, like, like the fact is like that team is gonna be playing in the states, um, to have its game in the states.

So if that team is playing half of its game in the states, if you don't have a full division over there, what time are those games?

Are they on overnight?

Is that team like exempt from ever playing on a Sunday night or a Monday night?

Like, or a Thursday night, like, you know, you would have to kind of carve out a bunch of things to make it work.

And again, like that's why, that's why I say like, you gotta show the owners that it's gonna be worth their while financially, it's gonna be worth the trouble of doing it, you know, versus Where they're going right now, which is like, just having 16, I think within a few years, it's gonna be 16 games overseas every year, um, in different countries, allows you to grow in different places, and every team has 1 international game per year.

That's the other thing, man, like the, let's say the London.

Whatever you wanna call them, are playing at on Sunday Night Football.

It's 1:30 in the morning over there.

I don't know.

Um.

Yeah, I don't know, it's, I, I, I.

Here's my prediction is that if they, if the tailwind of the Olympics launches a legitimately competitive flag football league, maybe that's where the NFL tries it out and it's like, OK, put a team in London.

I don't care, you know, and, and then that would give them a flag team, see if people actually get into it.

I don't know, do something like that, but don't try to trick me on this, kiddo.

I don't believe you.