NFL International Series has been a huge success

[BigDingus]

2 hours ago, Buffalo716 said:

It took like 40 years for basketball to grow to the level to where they put out international Superstars fairly consistent 

 

The NFL product would be so bad with 8 new teams in Europe... As the person said there would be practice squad players starting 

 

And it would remain this way for 20 plus years until an entire generation grew up and was built for football overseas 

 

After 25-30 years they might produce some consistent NFL players

 

Yes, I agree. But I'm saying they wouldn't be able to add 8 teams overnight. It would be a 20+ year process to slowly add teams every 4-5 years until they hit 8 teams. 

 

They don't need kids to be born with the NFL already in their location. If you put a team in Berlin today, it's not that you need to wait 20 years to see an NFL player from Germany appear. An 8 year old in elementary school could become a fan & start playing. Some teenagers could get interested & change sports. It's a process.

 

Europe has athletes. Mexico has athletes. There are hundreds of millions of people out there, and some people just have great genetics regardless of where you're born. The key is to get some of those people interested in YOUR sport over the others.

 

If 2 new expansion teams were added over the next 5 years, there's enough college players & talent on benches/practice squads to do the usual expansion drafts to fill out those rosters. It would be similar to adding the Panthers & Jaguars, only there's WAY more talent available than there was back in the 90's. 

 

The Jags had pretty immediate success. The Panthers made a Super Bowl a little after 10 years of existence. Each team carries 90 players at the start of camp & cuts down to 53. That means over 1,200 players don't make a 53 man roster each off-season, and I'm sure there's at least some that could very well be NFL level talent. Not only that, expansion drafts take players from a pool of existing teams as well. 

 

Adding 2 new teams wouldn't break the league. You do that to start, then after another 5-6 years, add another team. You do this until you hit 40 teams. 

 

And while this is going on, even having 2 teams in Europe (say 1 in London, 1 in Berlin) would attract viewership & fans from other places in Europe. Just because they're located in those 2 places, doesn't mean they will only appeal to people in those 2 locations. It's a source of pride, like how all of Canada rallied around the Raptors in the NBA Finals or around the Blue Jays in the World Series. 

 

I'm sure plenty of young Canadians watched these games & got interested in basketball & baseball. This is ignoring that some schools in Europe ALREADY offer American football as a sport. Leagues already exist for universities, and some high schools offer American football as well. 

 

So it's not like they're starting from zero. Again, you have to start somewhere if the league ever wants the kinda of appeal MLB, NBA or even NHL has internationally.