Will the Glazers sell and own in London?

[conrad77]

Well, that was entirely too well thought out and articulated for this board and we will not accept that kind of intelligence here!  Seriously, I agree up to the last paragraph as the NFL, by way of taking over as the preferred sport in the US, does not necessarily need to branch out to thrive. There is a die hard following here that over the past 20 years has nearly eclipsed baseball.  I think the sport will be fine, barring some catastrophic change in the US's financial world status, as it has proven it can expand and develop while being wholly homogenous in nature.  That being said, I think you are correct in assuming that the NFL in London is by in large a publicity stunt, which is why, despite the claims of Goodell, we are likely to see a Super Bowl overseas before a team exists there.  I wouldn't be entirely supportive of it if I had to travel that distance to see the Bucs play in it, however, I think we can all agree that is not likely to happen for quite some time.  It would however be a novel idea and I'm sure it is one many wealth NFL fans would jump on for the experience of it.  Still, I was hoping to rid our team of the Glazer boys.  I don't suppose you have any other futbol teams for sale do you?  By the way +1 for use of the word goodly.

[Nicodemus]

The thing with the Superbowl is that what's the difference of an East coast team traveling to the west coast to play a game or for that team to head east to London? London is 5 hours ahead of the Eastern seaboard, flights on average take about 5-6 hours. If the Superbowl is played 2 weeks after the championship games then there is no fuss about jet lag etc as the teams (both west coast and east coast) have plenty of time to recover.

Granted a west coast team would take longer, (last time I went from roughly west coast to London was 9 hour flight), but even that isn't a ball breaker with enough time to recover. A west coast team playing a regular season game here would struggle with the flights, but that can be overcome by scheduling games on the east coast prior to flying over. So the flight times and recovery times would have to be managed a bit.

If concord was still flying all this would be moot anyhow, since you'd be able to do the atlantic in 3 hours.

[Nicodemus]

Oh, yeah. I think there are few lower division suckball teams that are for sale. But since I dispise soccer with a passion I don't really care. Not all of us Brits like the sport.

Some folks over here call the Premiership leauge the andrex league, Andrex being a toilet paper just in case you didn't know,  expensive, soft and very very long.

[krazybuc]

Maybe Goodell should focus on keeping the league going instead of expanding across the ocean.

The league will SUFFER if Goodell is able to pull this nonsense off. If he wants to go global it'd be smarter to start with Canada and/or Mexico. (both horrible ideas IMO)

The NFL sells out 1 game a year in London. Congrats. It's 1 game!!! That doesn't mean they'd sell them all out.

Goodell sucks if you ask me.

[conrad77]

Here is another article from AP.  Goodell says he does prefer a new expansion rather than moving a US based team and that there will be more regular season games played in London over the next few years.  First, this tells me they are much further into considering an expansion than I originally thought.  Second, I have to wonder if he will then be advocating for an LA franchise rather than moving a team, so that the numbers are even.  He really seems to want this.  I agree that London games are no biggie for east coast teams.  It is actually easier than going to the west coast where jet lag is concerned.  I have many several trips across the pond and have made a few to CA and OK as well and always have an easier time going east.  The problem will rise in that most teams will not want to give up a "home" game to make the trip.  Fans will get restless with that and I see Goodell using that frustration as a reason for starting a team there.  At least if the Bucs have to travel it's nice to know there are fans there to support them.  I figured everyone would hate us because of the Glazers.

-----
AP -
Goodell said Friday that "every indicator" shows the British market can support more games and that having a franchise here is of "tremendous interest" to the league. But he stopped short of giving a timeline for expanding the NFL's overseas presence.

"The interest and the enthusiasm for our game continues to grow, and we want to feed that," Goodell said. "We want to respond to that by hopefully bringing more to the UK."

Goodell spoke at a sports conference Friday ahead of Sunday's game between the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Wembley Stadium. It's the third year in a row that the NFL is staging a regular-season game in London, and the league is now looking into playing at least two games a year in Britain, he said. Aside from London, Manchester and Glasgow, Scotland, are being looked at as potential venues.

"I expect that sometime in the next couple of years, we could be playing multiple games here," Goodell said. "If we brought more than one game here, and it continues to have the same kind of enthusiasm and growth of interest, I think that is about as good of an indicator you can get that it could successfully support a franchise. And that's what we're looking at."

Staging a Super Bowl abroad, however, "is not something that is under active consideration," Goodell said.

The league is considering expanding the regular season to 17 or 18 games, with a possibility for every team to play one game abroad. Patriots owner Robert Kraft said if the league wants more of the current franchises to travel internationally for games, the regular season should be extended so that teams can keep the same number of home games. The Bucs are giving up a home game this season.

"I'm not sure our fans would appreciate us giving up a regular-season (home) game, and I know I wouldn't like to do that. But eventually I think there's a chance of that if we expand the schedule," Kraft said.

Kraft said placing an NFL team in London "would be the right thing to do some time in the next decade."

Goodell said he would prefer a potential London-based team was a completely new franchise, rather than moving one from an existing market.

"We would like to keep all our teams where they are," he said.

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady didn't sound too enthusiastic about playing for a team based in Europe.

"That would be challenging," Brady said. "But I don't see that happening any time soon."

The league is also eyeing having a team in Los Angeles again, especially after California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill this week allowing the construction of a 75,000-seat stadium that developers hope will lure an NFL team back to the Los Angeles area.

"I think there are some positive developments going on there," Goodell said. "But now we have to figure out how to pay for it. And in our economic system, that is a big challenge. It's at least an $800 million stadium."

He would not venture a guess as to what would come first, a team in London or Los Angeles.

"I don't know about the timing as far as the sequence," he said. "I would tell you that both markets are of tremendous interest to us."

[conrad77]

Goodell sucks if you ask me.

So does your racist logo.  It's hard to take people seriously when they display that ignorant crap.

[BerubesBucs]

they just need to leave london alone entirely.

I feel like it's ALL a bad idea... from season games being played over there, to super bowl games, to having a team there.

NO, NO, and NO again... it screws all the loyal fans over here.

and perhaps the stupidest idea ive heard of all, is having the Super Bowl over there... Why are you going to hold a league in one country, and then, for it's biggest game, and the country's biggest sports spectacle, MOVE it to another country... just stupid.

How does having an expansion team in London screw people in America?

really picked my words for that one huh

That doesnt. The games and super bowl over there do.

[Caveat Emperor]

Couple of points, mostly in response to Nicodemus:

1. Any loss of periphery revenue (concessions, parking, etc.) associated with playing at a municipal stadium as opposed to a football-only construct would probably be off-set by the fact that the owner of a London-based franchise would control the entire market for professional American football in the country. That's a pretty big consolation prize to get for not having beer money. Ticket sales would have to be worked out, but I assume there would be some sort of lease arrangement for wherever games were played.

2. The "everyone already has a team" argument is somewhat short sighted -- the idea is to grow new fans of the sport (people who don't already follow American football and have an American football team they back). I'm sure, in the NFL's grand vision, they want London kids running around in home team gear (you still call them "kits" over there?). The current NFL fans represent a bridge generation to the fans of tomorrow who will grow up watching NFL (and London) football.

Plus, this argument gets made regularly whenever teams in any sport move to a location -- for example, in baseball, it was argued for years that Washington DC residents were already Baltimore Orioles fans (which was true -- the majority of DC residents who followed baseball followed the O's) so there was no market for baseball in DC. Will some people still follow their teams? Absolutely -- but, like anywhere, there will always be a lot of people who go to local games because it's there even though they might not be huge fans of the home team.

[cyberdude557]

They need to work out the labor issues before even thinking of LA, London, Toronto, or any other experiment. If they don't work something out soon, they are going to end up with a lock-out perhaps as early as 2011.

You would think the league would learn from their mistake with Jacksonville what happens when they try to rush expansion.

[krazybuc]

Goodell sucks if you ask me.

So does your racist logo. It's hard to take people seriously when they display that ignorant crap.

If you'd like to debate that logo feel free to visit Pirates Cove and have your ass handed to you by a dozen different posters. Or you can PM me to avoid the public embarrassment.

It's apparent you either A. didn't invest a single hour of your life in college. or B. just a sheep that believes anything the media/society tells you and is too lazy to research anything on your own in search of the truth.

[conrad77]

Goodell sucks if you ask me.

So does your racist logo. It's hard to take people seriously when they display that ignorant crap.

If you'd like to debate that logo feel free to visit Pirates Cove and have your butt handed to you by a dozen different posters. Or you can PM me to avoid the public embarrassment.

It's apparent you either A. didn't invest a single hour of your life in college. or B. just a sheep that believes anything the media/society tells you and is too lazy to research anything on your own in search of the truth.

A.  I have a BA in US Foreign Policy & International Affairs.  B. No matter what your logic on the historical value of the rebel flag it still stands as an indisputable reminder of de**CENSORED**able atrocities for the majority of the US population and is therefore offensive to a great number of people.  I will never understand how those who debate it's original meaning fail to understand or recognize what it has become.  Yes, I am aware of it's true meaning, but don't get so hung up on that single factor that it keeps you from see how the mass public portrays it.  I wonder if you have an AA friends who agree with your take on it?  When you display such a symbol, despite what may be the case, it portrays an image of you that bemoans a lack of intelligence , compassion, or socially integrated understanding.  Not trying to be a jerk about it but it is offensive despite what you may feel or believe.

[Incognito]

Goodell sucks if you ask me.

So does your racist logo. It's hard to take people seriously when they display that ignorant crap.

If you'd like to debate that logo feel free to visit Pirates Cove and have your butt handed to you by a dozen different posters. Or you can PM me to avoid the public embarrassment.

It's apparent you either A. didn't invest a single hour of your life in college. or B. just a sheep that believes anything the media/society tells you and is too lazy to research anything on your own in search of the truth.

A.  I have a BA in US Foreign Policy & International Affairs.  B. No matter what your logic on the historical value of the rebel flag it still stands as an indisputable reminder of de**CENSORED**able atrocities for the majority of the US population and is therefore offensive to a great number of people.  I will never understand how those who debate it's original meaning fail to understand or recognize what it has become.  Yes, I am aware of it's true meaning, but don't get so hung up on that single factor that it keeps you from see how the mass public portrays it.  I wonder if you have an AA friends who agree with your take on it?  When you display such a symbol, despite what may be the case, it portrays an image of you that bemoans a lack of intelligence , compassion, or socially integrated understanding.  Not trying to be a jerk about it but it is offensive despite what you may feel or believe.

I concur.

[krazybuc]

Goodell sucks if you ask me.

So does your racist logo. It's hard to take people seriously when they display that ignorant crap.

If you'd like to debate that logo feel free to visit Pirates Cove and have your butt handed to you by a dozen different posters. Or you can PM me to avoid the public embarrassment.

It's apparent you either A. didn't invest a single hour of your life in college. or B. just a sheep that believes anything the media/society tells you and is too lazy to research anything on your own in search of the truth.

A. I have a BA in US Foreign Policy & International Affairs. B. No matter what your logic on the historical value of the rebel flag it still stands as an indisputable reminder of de**CENSORED**able atrocities for the majority of the US population and is therefore offensive to a great number of people. I will never understand how those who debate it's original meaning fail to understand or recognize what it has become. Yes, I am aware of it's true meaning, but don't get so hung up on that single factor that it keeps you from see how the mass public portrays it. I wonder if you have an AA friends who agree with your take on it? When you display such a symbol, despite what may be the case, it portrays an image of you that bemoans a lack of intelligence , compassion, or socially integrated understanding. Not trying to be a jerk about it but it is offensive despite what you may feel or believe.

I concur.

http://www.pewterreport.com/forum/index.php?topic=48111.0

Feel free to chime in and make yourself look stupid.