Goodell: NFL Could Expand To 34 Teams
By Aaron Nagler on Feb 03, 2012 with 25 Comments
Appearing last night on Costas Tonight: Live from the Super Bowl, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was asked about the NFL possibly making a return to the Los Angeles market. The commish, fresh off signing a contract extension, gave a somewhat surprising answer.
Teams such as the Minnesota Vikings, Buffalo Bills and Jacksonville Jaguars have long been rumored to possibly be eyeing a move to the L.A. market, for various reasons. Goodell apparently has other ideas.
"Really, we want to keep our teams where they are, and that's the dilemma because not only do we have to get the stadium in L.A., then we have to find out how to get the team."
Goodell added, "We probably don't want to go to 33."
The idea is, apparently, to put a brand new team in Los Angeles and to ad ANOTHER team on top of that, either in L.A. or perhaps somewhere else. (London?)
For my part, I hate the idea. I think the league's expansion to 32 teams has diluted the talent pool badly enough as it is. But if there's money to be made - and there is - you can bet this will most likely come to pass.
(Goodell's remarks about expansion begin around the 9:30 mark in the video below)
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I get the dreadful feeling you might be right with the NFL eyeing a London franchise. It’s a horrible idea-and I say that as a English NFL fan…
The rule should be; if it’s a road game you should be able to drive there, else forget it. Although, I guess you could drive to Argentina.
Too much of a good-thing isn’t always good.
The NFL can’t find more than 15 competitive quarterbacks at the pro level as it stands, and only about 6-8 of those can take you on a championship playoff run. Same with Tackles, DB’s and pass rushers. The product at the bottom 1/3′rd of the league will be embarrassing.
I’m not a fan of expanding the league, either.
However, playing devil’s advocate and thinking “big Picture”, expanding the game overseas and exposing more of the world to NFL football, while in the short term, would water down and stretch thin the currently available (and limited) pool of talent to more teams than it can support.. But with increased exposure to the game, and long term increased interest in the game in different countries and markets, you would then start to see millions of people outside the US starting to play the game. That’s millions of athletes who would otherwise be playing other sports. Out of those millions of athletes worldwide, a percentage of them will be good enough to make it to the NFL level. Now you have the potential to go from 15 franchise caliber QB’s for 32 NFL teams, to maybe an over abundance of franchise quality QB’s for even 40 NFL teams.
The world is a big place.
All that said, I still don’t like the idea of expanding into London, but I understand the long term goals of the NFL, and the pool of talent being thinned down is a short-sighted view of the issue.
The rest of the world doesn’t play the game of football for the better part of a decade beginning in grade school and ending in college.
You really believe we’re going to find an NFL QB by poaching the best Cricket, Rugby and Soccer have to offer? Call me a doubter.
CSS, I’m talking about the NFL’s long term outlook. not the short term.
The USA is just now finally starting to support world-level competition soccer talent, it’s been roughly a 30-year journey. I would expect the same type schedule for NFL football to start cultivating talent internationally. Consider the seeds to have at least been planted in the UK, so figure 20 years if London got a franchise.
You’re born an athlete. It’s all about how they are developed. And if there isn’t an American football presence, there’s almost zero chance they will play the game.
In theory, makes sense. But the top .05% of the great athletes that make it through the system are in equal parts a byproduct of the competition. Do you really believe, even in 20 years, that the UK will have enough clubs, leagues or high-school leagues to coach, teach or foster anywhere near that level of saturated competition as the US does? Especially with the infrastructure and funding already committed to Futbal?
I can’t see it. Can’t even imagine it. Extremely unique US sport and I’m guessing you would need more like 50 years. Meanwhile, we can all suffer through 50 years of more diluted talent on 34 squads.
I’m 38 years old. I can tell you with all certainty, when I was 6-8 years old, those kids who chose playing soccer were not playing a “real” sport. Soccer? In the US? No chance that’s going anywhere. There was no competition, there weren’t any good coaches, no good collegiate or minor/major league leagues that could cultivate anything close to the rest of the world’s standards.
I’m pretty sure I thought, as well as the rest of the country, that Soccer was the sports equivalent of the Metric system- all we ever heard was that the US was going to start implementing it, in was inevitable.. But it would never really happen.
I don’t see much difference between Soccer getting a foot hold here in the states ( pun intended) and American football taking hold in Europe or elsewhere.
The biggest deciding factor in the sport expanding is whether or not they give it a shot. American Football will never grow overseas if they do not make the attempt.
So only 30 years of waiting until the theoretical expansion of the talent pool can feed team expansion? Blain Gabbert’s of the world rejoice, you’re the future.
Perhaps I’m underestimating the developmental timeline. This looks promising:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNKGsUdn9XQ
Again, CSS, I am simply stating that the NFL as a league is looking at the bigger picture than you or I would as a fan.
The league’s job is to ensure American Football grows and expands.. And that it is still being played generations from now. While it might be a shitty proposition for the likes of you or I who maybe only have another 30 years to enjoy the sport, the league is looking at the long term future on a bigger scale.
I don’t care for the immediate effects. Last time I’ll say this- I still understand the NFL’s thought process for the long term.
I get that Oppy, I really do. But what I can’t see is how they get around their NFL Europe failures. It was supposed to originally feature local ‘talent’ on the squads, but the squads ended up carrying something like 2 or 3 ‘native’ players. With no local players to market and prices that were cost prohibitive the league couldn’t survive.
How will they address these two issues? There is no local product for marketing purposes, and the costs to watch a game where the product will be terrible at first and un-relatable can be called a ‘barrier’ to be kind.
It ‘feels’ like the business plan is, ‘hey, that’s a big untapped market’. Feels like the underpants gnome business model:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBiSI6OdqvA
Lol CSS. Nice link.
And btw – I hate the idea of European Am. Football too.
There is simply not a marked that can be profitably tapped enough to make the talent dilution worth it.
Think about it – the USA has the world’s largest sporting budget. 350 million affluent people with lots of time/money on hand, and it STILL has a pathetic excuse for a professional soccer league and a middling level National Team.
When you can’t beat Slovenia in the World Cup, that means that you are not, in fact, very good.
I’m only a casual soccer fan and not defending soccer, but the MLS did beat out the NBA and NHL for average attendance last year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....82593.html
The nfl has about ten good years left before it becomes a total joke. 18 games, 34 teams. No physicality. I have to say the most entertaining games of the year were 49ers saints and 49ers giants. Football without good, hard-hitting d is not fulfilling, it’s like eating junk food, tons of passing, on the surface, seems more fun to watch, but ultimately a balanced game is much more important and satisfying IMO.
Inevitably, greed will ruin the game.
Although you speak of the greed factor another thing to worry about relating to the viability of the NFL is concussions.
I think we’re approaching a period in the not so distant future where neither the players or public at large will tolerate concussions. In a violent contact sport what do you do?
Awful idea. Right up there with the 18 game schedule. Absolutely agree that it dilutes the game.
Personally, I hate the idea of throwing the divisions out of balance again too. You can’t just make two of the divisions have 5 teams; it’s decidedly unfair.
So what do you do? Probably consolidate – and we have the NFC East/Central/West again, with 6, 6, and 5 team divisions. Throw in the rumored “playoff expansion” (another bad idea) and you get 3 division winners and maybe 4 wildcards? Sucks.
I would add 2 more teams Toronto maybe and Portland to have 36 have the Old NFC central + NO
Loooooooondon. London calling….
just sayin’
As I said here: http://cheeseheadtv.com/blog/t.....dcast-19-2
The London franchise will be cost-prohibitive from all sorts of standpoints. Taxes, travel expense, time. Not to mention jet lag, constant travel and lack of interest in previous american football leagues. It’s a terrible idea but like a dog with an old bone, they won’t let it go until it chokes them.
I wonder if the similarities between American football and rugby would make the NFL more appealing to Londoners who already enjoy rugby. Or would they consider the Yankee version as an insult to the original and snub their noses at it?
They should have stopped the year of the merger.
worst idea ever.
I concur. I think the expansion at Lambeau Field is a bad idea, too. The younger generation of Packers fans are spoiled rotten. Once the inevitable decline occurs, I predict many of those new seats will be empty on game days. The stadium will be sold out, but fewer people will bother to show up.
Roger Goodell is turning the NFL into a traveling circus.
Expansion or not, I’m going to keep rooting for my Bengals. I thought NFL Europe was a bust? So why on earth would you want to put a team in London?