London Could Get Its Own NFL Team, Says NFL UK Official

The head of the NFL's United Kingdom-based office believes London is inching closer to landing its own league franchise. In an interview with Reuters, UK managing director Alistair Kirkwood thinks the Jacksonville Jaguars signing a four-year deal to play in Wembley Stadium is a stepping stone to a more permanent NFL team.

"I think the first chapter has been considered a success with the owners voting on a renewal going forward. Jacksonville returning is also a sign of maturity of the concept," Kirkwood said. "What this now does is allow us to test if we can bring in more new fans and boost a single-team recognition. Once that period has come up, we will then have (learned) an awful lot about it and know what the viability for us going forward is and then be in a great position to make a call."

The NFL's International Series first came to London in 2007, when the New York Giants played the Miami Dolphins. This year's sixth such matchup between the New England Patriots and St. Louis Rams is set for Oct. 28. The Jaguars will then play yet-to-be determined opponents at Wembley from 2013-'16.

As for London having its own team, its longest taste of the NFL was with the Monarchs, a team that competed in the World League of American Football and then NFL Europe from '91-'98.

Source: Sporting News

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc]NO GOD! PLEASE NO!!! NOOOOOOOOOO - YouTube[/ame]

 

Its called AMERICAS game for a reason

 

It's people like you that makes the world hate Americans so much.

Despite the average Americans thirst for isolationism, the cold reality is that the world is becoming more and more integrated within each cultures and sport comes with that. America (specifically Football) has done well to resist it for as long as it has, but the time will come, like with baseball, basketball and hockey where you too will have to share your beloved football with evil foreigners too.

On topic, Alistair Kirkwood is an idiot. For every bit of progress he has made for the sport in the UK, he has gone far to sabotage it since getting the International Series. This, like the monthly rumours of a UK franchise, is just another pipedream used to distract the British fans from yet another botched television deal.

 

While I love seeing the game spread overseas, I think the NFL should stay within the states, I just think having one single team in London would throw off travel HEAVILY. The layover would be absolutely ridiculous, especially on west coast teams, or the London team itself.

Now, if the NFL wanted to do something where every team played 1 game in London, that's feasible, but then you have to consider the fact that fans lose 1 home game per year. You would also have to make accommodations for them (probably placing their bye week before the London game or after).

So in other words, way too many changes have to be implemented for it to work PROPERLY.

 

really? really....:icon_rolleyes: I see you like the Flyers there, don't you think Canada's game of hockey should stay in Canada?

With that being said I really don't think they should put an NFL team there, it'd really mess with the scheduling, if anything I think they should try to put an NFL team in Toronto/Vancouver/Mexico City first.

 

It'd be cool in theory, if years from now the NFL were to expand to say 36 or 40 teams (I know that's a ton) and have 4-8 international teams. Say an International Conference of sorts. Logistics would need to be worked, but it'd be cool.

 

This makes no sense. The amount of travel required, for the teams that have to play in London but more specifically the London team that would have to fly overseas repeatedly, would be stupid. Every team that played in London would give next week's opponent an advantage with the travel/jetlag.

It's great that they want to have these conversations and to start looking into the possibility of expansion, but I see no way this goes down. Maybe Europe gets its own league. :shrug:

 

Yeah. I'd say so.

You already have west coast teams snitching about traveling to the east coast and vice versa... now we're gonna send the guys to London.

:icon_jook:

 

The NFL dropped the ball with NFL Europe after the WLAF folded. That market might still be a bit jaded after two failed attempts at pro football. The only way this can have any real mass appeal is to have actual NFL teams playing NFL games that mean something overseas. Europe might be open to the overseas games here or there, but I think there's still lots of work to be done before this could work for a team to reside there. The only real way I see that this can work is if they have a separate European league or division that lessens the blow of the travel. Playing overseas is a logistical nightmare for everyone.

 

I wonder how free agents would weigh signing with a team in London vs. a team in the states.

 

I've never heard that before. I think you just made that up

Sent from my HTC Vivid

 

Hockey isn't one of "America's sports.".

 

Agree. It would be cool to give Europevtheir own league. They could call it NFL Europe...

 

Genius!!!

 

nope see not me

 

If it is Americas game, why do they call the winner World Champion? :icon_mrgreen:

 

Photoshopped. Badly.

 

The only thing that would make it worse is if its was the Eagles trophy

 

no i dont even own photoshop and dont know how to use it americas game was even a show on nfl network