NFL a world league ... ?

[bedlamVR]

Okay I started a possibly misguided thread in the Stadium about the NFL in London, but it got me thinking .

Given the success of the World series games and assuming that success and popularity continues and potentially spreads over the next 10 years. Then what would people think if the NFL anounced something along the following .

*The NFL increases the number of regular games .

*The Bills move permanently to Canada

*The NFL announces a massive expansion adding 8 new teams . 5 in the US cities and 3 in World locations ( maybe London, China?, Mexico, Europe - e.g.Germany) which would form a world division along with the Bills . These new teams would form new divisions so the exsiting rivalries and long established histories were not disrupted .

* World Group teams would play home and away games in blocks to reduce traveling costs for those teams and those playing . That way if the Redskins were to play the London team and Germany team those games would always be scheduled together .

*The Playoffs are altered so that the top 8 teams in each conference ( based on record or divisional standings) enter the playoffs with all 8 teams getting a bye after the regular season, home allocation being based of finishing record seeding system so a 9-7 divisional champion would have to travel to an 11-5 wild card team.

In the past the NFL has tried to paste watered down teams onto host cities and the result has been well not very impressive .

There could be alternatives . If the NFL ran a world league along side the NFL and took advantage of the native talent in world countries, rather than flying players in and out at the end of the season, setting up academies for young players in Europe and further a field where young players could be nurtured and indeed paid to learn and spread the game, and these players would be slightly younger than the NFL counterparts on the whole which would give promising but raw players a stage to at least get a shot at the NFL . At the end of the season they could play an additional pro-bowl exhibition game the NFL Vs the world .

I know this would be unpopular, but I was wondering what people thought and if they thought a world league could ever work .

[TSO]

I think it could... but it's gotta start the bottom way up when it comes to your post. It's gotta start with actually nurturing that talent, setting up acadamies around the world (they should use the existing high school and universities in each country), and spreading the game before any actual NFL franchises are started anywhere around the world.

If they'd just focus on teaching the game and setting up programs for the youth to get involved in it'd set itself up. It's just going to take the money, time and effort that I don't think they want to provide.

[KDawg]

I'm against this. I wouldn't want to play in another country if I was an NFL player.

I don't want the Bills to move. I'm a Redskins fan, but the Bills are huge here and they mean alot to the people here.

[pointyfootball]

I know this would be unpopular, but I was wondering what people thought and if they thought a world league could ever work .

I would hope not. I kind of like that football is essentially a North American sport only. Europe, Asia & Australia have soccer, rugby and to an extent basketball. Why force our sport on them? The time/effort/$ that it would take to get them to begin to sway their best athletes from their traditional sports to play football would be incredible.

Of course, I thought slots & early voting was a bad idea too, but my opinion wasn't enough!

[Grimm]

I don't like this idea, I'm against any expansion what so ever, over-expansion is part of the reason that the NHL sucks now, the talent pool is only so deep.

[scstand]

I am anti globalization period and I'm especially against it for American sports!!

[pjfootballer]

I'm anti-globalization of our sports leagues. The Premiership would never think of starting franchises in the US, because well, it's an English league. I hope the Bills stay in Buffalo. I've actually hate all the franchises moving over the years. I would have like to see the Colts stay in Baltimore, the original Browns in Cleveland, the Cards in St. Louis, the Oilers in Houston and the Rams in LA. Then Arizona, Indy would have gotten expansion teams along with Nashville.

I wonder why the Houston expansion franchise didn't try to wrestle the Oilers name away from the Titans. The Titans had to get permission to the name Titans from the Jets.

[JdoubleU]

Europe is all about Soccer (er, football) not tackle football. The League had something over there, and they couldn't fill the stadiums. Our football to them is like Aussie rules would be to us. Canada may be open to our football, but they like their own brand of football, & don't punish Buffalo, who support the team, by moving to Canada. Start a new team in Toronto (if they will support it) & put one in LA. It seems Soccer, Hockey & Basketball are the world's real international team sports. Football is a US thing.

[Siven]

I'm against it, I think it just becomes too much stress on the players to have to fly around.

I'm all for playing a game or two in london, or hell, even if every team had to play a game abroad that'd be fine, but I think a "world" league is ****ing too much with the system.

Plus it would take years to set up the talent pool necessary to support European football.