Every year, the launch of the NFL’s European slate renews talk of the potential placement of a team in another country.
Whether that’s aimed at generating short-term interest in the games being played in Europe or a long-term strategy for global domination is unclear. To date, more than 15 years of talk about a London-based team hasn’t resulted in tangible action.
The topic came up again when Alex Sherman of CNBC recently spoke to Commissioner Roger Goodell, during an off-camera interview that touched on various topics.
Via Sherman, Goodell dubbed a London franchise “possible.”
“There are markets that could certainly support a team,” Goodell said. “We’ve always focused on, what are the competitive consequences of that? Can we manage that? And so every year we try to learn something from the international series.”
If one team lands in London, it makes sense to have two. Previously, Goodell has floated the idea of a four-team European division. Last year, he pivoted to 16 annual neutral-site games.
Wherever it goes, this year’s games include, for the first time, a team playing consecutive games in Europe as the visitor. The Vikings are the road team on Sunday against the Steelers in Dublin, and they’ll be the road team next Sunday against the Browns in London.
Minnesota’s experience will provide a data point as to either 16 international games or one or more international teams.
“It starts to give you a sense of, can you do certain things that are going to be necessary from a scheduling standpoint and a training standpoint?” Goodell told Sherman.
Scheduling would be an issue with European-based teams. When they come to America, it will be for two or three games at a time. When American-based teams go to Europe, they could play multiple European-based teams before going home.
There would be other challenges, from travel time to exchange rates to tax laws to variances in governments to players leaving their families in a strange land for multiple weeks at a time to free agents not wanting to join European teams to rookies refusing to sign when drafted by European teams. If those issues are addressed with modified rules aimed at achieving competitive balance and if/when the foreign teams become consistently successful, the American-based teams will cry foul.
Still, at some point the league will look to increase total football inventory not by adding games but by adding teams. And if teams are going to be added, England, Germany, and other European countries become prime candidates to get teams.