Sounds like a great way to expense some transatlantic flights, dinners and five-star lodging; but my god this exceptionally impossible. Buying out the CFL, changing all of its rules and either expanding or converting it to a minor league would be more likely and itself is never happening. I don't think we fully appreciate how little the rest of the world cares about gridiron football; especially first world economies with the media infrastructure and advertising dollars to fully subsidize soccer. Uncertainty about radio revenues alone probably keeps most American, mid-sized "bubble" cities from getting expansion franchises and this would be worse in the UK.
It'll never be as big as soccer or rugby in the UK but I think a city with 10m people could be enough to sell enough tickets, especially compared to the woeful attendance that the Chargers and Jags bring in here.
The NFL has consistently expanded its presence with England games every year. They wouldn't be doing this if there wasn't a market. Hell, ex-pats alone are enough to drum up interest in this... let alone the pockets of Londoners that do have a passion not just for the NFL but for all US sports (MLB, NBA included). The current London format seems to have been well adopted and not too disruptive for the teams that participate. If that's where they want to leave it, I don't see any problem with that... nor do I think it will be going away any time soon unless you do put a permanent team there.
The people of Toronto have a very strong interest in the Bills. A team there would be a huge success. The biggest problem is actually the CFL, there are some in Canada that would fight to prevent it from happening. Whatever team ends up in London is going to be extremely valuable, and the marketing possibilities for the players are excellent. It will be a very popular franchise.
I really don't think the free agency part is going to be nearly as big a difference as people think. Ten or twenty years ago it would have been a far bigger issue. As someone that has spent a lot of time living in the UK and has spent some time in London; there really isn't a big difference between London and the USA. Also the marketing opportunities for the players in London are excellent as the support for the franchise will extend well beyond London. The UK loves US sports, especially football. It isn't uncommon for younger men in the UK to gamble on and watch NFL games. What is surprising to many people is that London in culture essentially the same as the USA, There are very few differences. Even food choices are very similar to the USA as the UK has strongly embraced US culture.
IIRC the Bills' Toronto experiments have not gone well. Somebody said the Panthers are also looking eastward. I guess it makes sense with a new owner, an expiring lease, and a luke-warm market.
So logistically speaking if you have an NFL London team, do all of their home games occur at 6P or 9P UK time and all of their road games occur at 1P and 4P EST? In a way that seems less disruptive than this 9AM kickoff crap we have going on now.
That is interesting. All I can really add on it is that a lot of the people in the seats at Bills games are from Canada.
Likely yes to the 6 pm time. There are also ways that they can stagger home and away games to prevent too much travel time.
I think you can account for travel concerns by 1) putting them in the AFC East and 2) grouping their road games together in clusters. It would be a bit of a hard sell for certain players but I could also see their being a bit of a sex appeal to playing for the international team.
I'm talking purely geography and logistics here. Don't think it'd be much different from you or I. If weighing two job offers, one being a 2-3 hour flight from wherever home is vs. a 10 hour one, think most (not all) would choose the former all other things being equal. Now if the latter provides some additional incentive, then it's a different story which is my ultimate point. Marketable NFL players outside of elite QBs is almost non-existent, and even then you're talking about less than a handful. There would definitely be some local opportunities just like there'd be here in the US but don't think major companies would all of a sudden be running to the London Chargers trying to strike deals. Honestly I wonder how much marketing factors into your everyday player, don't think it's all that much, if any. Agreed with your other sentiments about London though. I was there last year and think it would resonate with some players, not all but some.
For the majority of players in the NFL, there really aren't "multiple" offers coming in on any given year. Sometimes, they have to go with the team that comes knocking, even if its not in a desirable market (which again, in a league that has teams in Green Bay Wisconsin, Buffalo NY, Jacksonville Florida, and Cincy... the overall market quality matters less in the NFL vs. any other sport). If anything, a good London NFL player does have far more local revenue-stream opportunities simply due to that market size vs the markets I just mentioned above. This could be anything from local appearances, local advertising, local business ventures... far more of those in London than most NFL cities.
That's true, question is whether you can or would want to build a roster with those guys. Stated multiple times that it's not about building a roster, it's whether you have to overpay to build a quality one. Just my opinion that they would. Good NFL players like Adrian Amos or Billy Turner? You don't really think they're signing with the London Chargers over Green Bay because of local revenue stream opportunities do you? Whitney Mercilus and DJ Reader are all good NFL players in the last year of their contract, I could be wrong but I highly doubt local revenue opportunities will be a big factor in their decision making this summer.
Given that most teams build around the draft... and those guys don't have much of a say once drafted, I don't think there will be an issue with total quality roster building. There is just not the free agency frenzied market in the NFL that you have in the NBA... or even baseball. A lot of years, the most active free agency team is simply the one with the most cap space. Most NFL players simply take the guaranteed money over either winning or location.... and the guaranteed money is tied specifically to that team's cap space. You should also acknowledge how franchises' fortunes can change quite drastically in the NFL. The Patriots were a bottom-feeder franchise before Belichick/Brady. Same with the Saints before Payton/Brees. The Cardinals/Rams have used re-location, multiple times, to their favor to increase franchise value. Right now, the San Diego/LA Chargers are worth a certain amount... with the possibility of decreased value if there really isn't a lot of season ticket/corporate interest in their brand in the the SoCal market. It would be dumb if they didn't consider a better situation... which London presents from a financial standpoint. I wouldn't be surprised if London becomes the "new LA" in terms of teams using the market as leverage to try and boost their own local situation... but the Chargers situation is unique in that they already have a new stadium/set-up and still don't feel like revenues would be optimized.
Spanos will not sell that team and will not move from LA because of the ridiculous sweatheart deal he has with the Ram's stadium. He can basically completely default on the number of PSL's sold and not have any repercussions. Kroenke wanted the Raiders, and got forced to work with Spanos, but I don't think he realize how bad that situation would be because Spanos is worse fraud thank Kroenke. NFL is totally screwed with the Chargers. Chargers are stuck in LA. But in a way, it basically gives all the Cali transplants a chance to "have home games" of their favorite teams. Chargers will have trouble with season tickets, and developing fan base for, especially now that Rivers appears to be fading, but if they start marketing the single game tickets to the "visiting team fans", then they can survive in LA. I don't see any team moving to London full time. I think the most likely scenario is that when the league goes to 17 or 18 games, they start a rotation of 8 +1 games in London with 16 different teams. Then they sell "season ticket" packages for those games. I think it would work because I think they would have to go to 2 bye weeks with longer regular season.
I think you're right about the marketing opportunities not really being there, just like they aren't there for most players outside of QBs and a few big time players. But the logistical thing wouldn't be a factor for most IMO. I have heard speculated and assume they would have an east coast "home base" in the US for off-season activities. The schedule would probably have them in London for two 4-game homestands, then they could operate out of their US facilities for the road games. I assume training camp and preseason would all be in the US as well. That means as a player you are only spending 8 weeks out of the year actually in London -- don't think that's going to be a deal-breaker for many if the fit and the money are right.
This would certainly make things more palatable. I hear you but none of this really counters my original point that it would still be the least desired FA destination and that they'd be at somewhat of a disadvantage from a proximity/logistics point of view. @DieHard Rocket's post would certainly help things in this regard and if true, seems like the NFL sees it as a concern as well.
I think having an unbalanced schedule (with a bunch of home games in a row, and a bunch of road games in a row) would be more of a problem for a team looking to obtain consistent success. It would be a challenge. I just think in the end, working in London for less than a quarter of the year is really not all that much of an encumbrance (and does have potential financial opportunities) vs. working in Buffalo during the winter, Green Bay during the winter, or Jacksonville.
