So for those of you who don't know there are several National Football League (American Football's top pro league) teams that are failing in their markets (one team has yet to sell out a home game this season and is on something like a 2 season streak of no home sell outs). At least one of these teams is expected to move in the 2009-2010 offseason. Two locations are being tossed around for the future location of what will most likely be the former Jacksonville Jaguars: London and Los Angeles. The NFL has been making a large push to become bigger in other parts of the world (playing games in Mexico City, allowing the Buffalo Bills to play one game a year in Toronto, and starting a yearly game in London at Wembley Stadium). That begs to ask: do you think London could support an NFL franchise?

I personally do not think that at this time London could support an NFL team. Here are the reasons I don't think it will work out:

-Will people fill the stadium for 8 games (plus perhaps playoff games) a season. The annual game sells out but that is one game and usually features at least one high profile team (Patriots, Dolphins, Giants, etc.). Will fans be interested in seeing 8 games a season especially when in all likelihood the team that moves to London will be one of the bottom-feeders in the league? I just don't know if fans in London will be willing to sit it out until the team gets better especially when it is a new franchise. Teams like the Lions, Raiders, and Chiefs are able to survive because their fanbase is supportive since the team has been in those locations forever. Would fans in London feel any real attachment to a terrible team that they just got?

-Filling stadiums is one-sided. One of the things about the NFL is a lot of teams have a strong traveling fanbase. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Dallas, NY Giants, and others have large numbers of fans who travel to the teams away games. For a franchise in London in reality the home crowd needs to fill the stadium, at the same time when they travel they will not be bringing a significant fanbase with them to the states. Some teams only sell out games when they are visited by a team with a strong traveling fanbase or high-profile, forcing them to basically have to fill a stadium with only a home crowd is impossible.

-Travel. There are several issues going on here. The NFL already has a policy of not making games where a West Coast team travels to the East Coast have a start time before 4 PM EST unless there is a problem. Imagine how bad it would be for a West Coast team to head to London for a game. The same goes for the London team heading to the states. The cost also becomes an issue, 16 of the 17 regular season games will feature one team overseas. Adding in possible playoff games and that number could become 18 games with one team playing overseas, it is expensive to fly a 53 man team plus staff across the Atlantic. In addition to the playing costs there are costs for scouting, the draft, etc.

The NFL does play a 17 week 16 game regular season schedule (each team gets one bye week). The scheduling doesn't specify home vs. away games. You could play one game at home then do a 3 game road trip followed by a four game home stand, the only rule is you play 8 games as the home team (you can play "home" games at other venues such as the international games) and 8 games as the away team.

In terms of having a new franchise start up in London the problem comes from a few fronts. NFL rules now require that teams must be added in pairs. If London were to get a new franchise a second one would have to be added at the same time. The NFL overall has been very happy with 32 teams and doesn't seem to be in a rush to get to 34 (which is why L.A. is still waiting on a team, the NFL wants to move franchises with poor fanbases rather than create two more). The other thing is the expansion draft rules really make it impossible for a team to do well right out of the gate. The NFL expansion draft rules allow teams to earmark a certain number of players that they keep, the rest of their players are available for the new franchises to draft. Most of the time even a "failing" franchise has a better core of players than you could get in the expansion draft.

As far as the conditions for operating a franchise, the NFL doesn't have strict rules for operating franchises as far as requiring sellouts. What it does have is a blackout policy. If a home game has not sold out within 72 hours NFL blackout policy dictates that the game will not be shown on local TV in the home team region. This is supposed to spur people to attend the games in person (most NFL operational costs are covered by ticket sales, the profits come from TV contracts and sponsorships). Some teams (such as the Jacksonville Jaguars) have been in a state of perpetual blackouts for the last 2 or 3 seasons. Especially with the league ready to stop revenue sharing teams cannot survive if they lose TV money because they are blacked out. That is why those teams are prime candidates for a move.

On a side note, the team most likely to move is the Jacksonville Jaguars. They are one game outside of a wildcard playoff spot this year at 7-7. The NFL playoffs feature 12 teams, 6 from each 16 team conference. The 4 division leaders get a spot and the two teams with the next best records get two wildcard spots. The Jaguars are one game out of the last wildcard spot.

I wish it could, but I doubt it at the moment, maybe in four/five years time. It would be awesome if we did it in school PE curriculum though. Rugga's cool, but American Football's cooler.

no, I think they tried, that's why they aren't doin' one there, cuz it must've been disasterous.

well, then why don't they start it in the UK? And also, I live 3 hours away from Green Bay.

Another issue that I thought of:

How would you denizens of the UK feel about having an NFL team if said team was going to be compromised of American players? Since as far as I know there aren't any semi-pro American football leagues in the UK or Europe (not since NFL Europe died) it would be almost impossible for the team to find native players ready to compete in the NFL.

Do you think the presence of an NFL team would spur a movement to create a league system to prepare players for the NFL or NCAA Football?

Would it be better for the team to field a roster that contains a majority of UK natives even if the team would be less competitive overall?