Jaguars President - "2020 is a critical year for us."

[apuszczalowski]

1 minute ago, Boatdrinks said:

The NFL would like a team in London. That gives it a decent shot at becoming reality. 

True, but I think it's more of a threat then a plan and something that long term won't work. Sometimes I feel it's more of a ploy to get other interest sparked. Theu say they want to do it, then get other locations locally stepping up to make an offer.

 

Baseball and Basketball already have issues where players don't want to play for the Canadian team (which is located a short 1-1/2 hour drive to the closest border crossing) because they don't want to play in another country. How does the NFL expect to get players to want to play in another country located on the other side of an ocean?

2 minutes ago, Limeaid said:

St Louis has an empty stadium.  If you are going to pick a place in Canada I think Victoria whose Metropolitan area is bigger than Pittsburgh would be a good choice.

Toronto would probably be the first spot because they have a temporary facility (could become permanent with Reno's if the Jays build a baseball only facility) and the corporations to help it out. Vancouver/Victoria is an option, along with Montreal if things take off.

 

Chances are though one of them goes to St Louis with a deal to build or overhaul the stadium, another one goes to somewhere like San Antonio or Oklahoma

[SectionC3]

17 minutes ago, apuszczalowski said:

True, but I think it's more of a threat then a plan and something that long term won't work. Sometimes I feel it's more of a ploy to get other interest sparked. Theu say they want to do it, then get other locations locally stepping up to make an offer.

 

Baseball and Basketball already have issues where players don't want to play for the Canadian team (which is located a short 1-1/2 hour drive to the closest border crossing) because they don't want to play in another country. How does the NFL expect to get players to want to play in another country located on the other side of an ocean?

Toronto would probably be the first spot because they have a temporary facility (could become permanent with Reno's if the Jays build a baseball only facility) and the corporations to help it out. Vancouver/Victoria is an option, along with Montreal if things take off.

 

Chances are though one of them goes to St Louis with a deal to build or overhaul the stadium, another one goes to somewhere like San Antonio or Oklahoma

Toronto is part of the Bills’ market.  The NFL gave it to Ralph years ago.  Nobody goes there unless they cut the Pegulas a share of the profits.  (Kind of like Nats/Orioles). 

[billsfan89]

The NFL wants London badly. The UK and Mexico remain the NFL's best international growth opportunities. The NBA has China as a huge growth market. The MLB has Latin America and Japan. Even the NHL has Eastern Europe and Scandinavia as growth opportunities (and the NHL is of course huge in Canada.) The NFL has struggled to find an international audience until finding recent success and growth in the UK and Mexico. 

 

I think you can safely say that the Jags will sooner rather than later be moving to London. That's just the truth of the matter. I don't like it as I hate the early London games but the NFL needs that international growth to expand its revenue (The US market is oversaturated.) 

 

Mexico City would present less challenges but I think they don't have the same rabid fanbase as the UK (I would say the NFL would prefer to continue to build that more slowly before rushing a team there, but in 10 years expect that to be the big push.) Honestly London would present a huge logistical nightmare (I think they would have the team do 4 game home/away strips.) But it could be done. 

 

I hate the London games but the only way I think they could do it is if they added an extra bye week to the season (16 games in 18 weeks) and used the bye weeks to pad out the travel schedule either giving teams bye weeks in-between London games or out of London games. Adding a second bye just seems necessary and would improve player safety (more time for nagging injuries to heal.) 

[eanyills]

Don’t see London happening for the same reason I don’t see Toronto.  The league is driven through TV-money. Unless they can get a monster deal through whatever agencies are in the UK or Rogers, there’s little incentive for the owners to do so. It doesn’t increase future tv deals to have a team out of market.

[Punching Bag]

8 minutes ago, billsfan89 said:

 

Mexico City would present less challenges but I think they don't have the same rabid fanbase as the UK (I would say the NFL would prefer to continue to build that more slowly before rushing a team there, but in 10 years expect that to be the big push.) Honestly London would present a huge logistical nightmare (I think they would have the team do 4 game home/away strips.) But it could be done. 

 

 

With crime in Mexico including kidnapping/kills how long do you think it would take for them to start targeting NFL players?  Young, rich, used to perusing nightlife and with known schedules would make them easy targets.  When teams made trip to Mexico City they were given warnings and extra security for trip.   I have friends who live in Mexico and have recommended that I not look at Mexico as vacation place even resorts. 

[Bob Chandler's Hands]

The jet lag will create significant challenges to visiting teams and for the London team on the road. West Coast-London in particular will be noticeable. 

Flying in Business Class and managing sleep and so forth makes it tolerable, but the brain and body can't be fooled. It takes close to a day per hour time zone change to adapt to the local timezone. 6 to 9 hours of time zone differences can only be overcome...maybe...if the visiting team departs for London on Monday for a game the following Sunday. 

I'm not an expert on this by any means but I have flown to Asia and Europe well over 100 times, read plenty of books and articles on it, spoken at length with co-workers doing the same thing, etc. Playing a sport at the highest level will expose even small gaps in physical and mental preparedness and energy levels IMO.

 

Not sure if the NFL will care about this. The NFLPA might but probably can't (or won't) stop it from happening. Maybe it will be a bargaining chip to eliminate the Thursday night games which seem inhuman to subject players to that abuse a mere 4 days after the prior game.  

[billsfan89]

1 hour ago, Limeaid said:

 

With crime in Mexico including kidnapping/kills how long do you think it would take for them to start targeting NFL players?  Young, rich, used to perusing nightlife and with known schedules would make them easy targets.  When teams made trip to Mexico City they were given warnings and extra security for trip.   I have friends who live in Mexico and have recommended that I not look at Mexico as vacation place even resorts. 

 

I do agree that the NFL is going to avoid putting a team full time in Mexico for many reasons safety included. I think they will continue to play games there and market heavily there. But overall they won't want to make a full time commitment to that market until they prove they have the money in that market to support a full time team and the safety issues are mitigated more. 

[apuszczalowski]

5 hours ago, SectionC3 said:

Toronto is part of the Bills’ market.  The NFL gave it to Ralph years ago.  Nobody goes there unless they cut the Pegulas a share of the profits.  (Kind of like Nats/Orioles). 

I thought all of this was proven to be false in sports. I think the Nats/Orioles issue was TV market, not a market area determined by the league as theirs.

[Mat68]

On 11/3/2019 at 6:44 PM, GunnerBill said:

 

And I think the team would need a "secondary home" as well in the US as a base when you do a road stretch. 

 

There are logistics issues but not of them are insurmountable. 

I could see a 50/50 London and Jacksonville split.  Jacksonville being the main home base.  Have a 4 game home trip in England every year.  This was always Khans move.  He owns Man U? Or Man City?  He was also the main broker behind the NFL only stadium in England.  Jacksonville has slowly been transitioning to England since Khan bought it.  It's only a matter of time.  

[KollegeStudnet]

On 11/3/2019 at 4:45 PM, Koko78 said:

Playoffs would be a huge problem, especially if the London team had to play a West Coast team on a week's notice.

I agree with you. The benefits are in traveling are rest, more game film and less training then the other team. It could work. Maybe. 

[GunnerBill]

14 minutes ago, Mat68 said:

I could see a 50/50 London and Jacksonville split.  Jacksonville being the main home base.  Have a 4 game home trip in England every year.  This was always Khans move.  He owns Man U? Or Man City?  He was also the main broker behind the NFL only stadium in England.  Jacksonville has slowly been transitioning to England since Khan bought it.  It's only a matter of time.  

 

Not quite. He owns Fulham.

[Whites Bay]

6 hours ago, apuszczalowski said:

 

Toronto would probably be the first spot because they have a temporary facility (could become permanent with Reno's if the Jays build a baseball only facility) and the corporations to help it out. Vancouver/Victoria is an option, along with Montreal if things take off.

 

I don't mean to pick nits, but this is the second mention of Montreal in this thread.  Just...no.  I can't see it happening.  Not just because Montreal couldn't hold on to the Expos.  It was worse than that.  The frigging MLB had to take ownership of the Expos.  NOT a way to engender trust and good will.  I can't imagine the NFL wanting THAT situation exploding all over their tuxedos.

 

Question - are there a lot of Vancouver license plates at Seahawks games like there are Ontario plates at Bills games?  I've never been to a game out there.  But I would imagine that any group of potential Vancouver owners lining up to attempt THAT stunt would have to deal with the Seahawks.  He's gone now, but I think I recall Paul Allen having been the wealthiest owner of any NFL franchise.  A formidable obstacle.

[Chicken Boo]

On 11/4/2019 at 1:27 PM, Beach said:

what part?  im in VA Beach, anytime an nfl team discussion comes up, they say Snyder will nix those chances right away.  We are one of the biggest areas without a major sports team though.

 

Well that's the issue.  Dan Snyder.  It would cut into the Skins fanbase for sure.

 

I would say the Ashburn area, but RT. 7 would be more of a nightmare than it already is.