Are the Paris Saints far off?

The NFL announced today that there will be another regular season game played in London during 2008 at Wembley Stadium. This announcement was not unexpected as NFL owners in 2006 voted to play up to two regular season games outside of the United States between 2007-2011. This announcement, though not unexpected, comes on the heels of Buffalo Bills' owner Ralph Wilson desire to move some 2008 regular season games to Toronto a few months ago. The National Football League has experimented with football abroad in various fashions over the past decade and was met with little success. Could it be that the leagues' new Commissioner, Roger Goodell has international plans for America's favorite sport? Goodell has even suggested interest in playing the Super Bowl abroad in the future.

On October 2nd, 2005, the NFL played it's first regular season game outside of US soil, as the Arizona Cardinals and the San Francisco 49'ers played in Mexico City at Azteca Stadium with over 100,000 fans in attendance. This year, The New York Giants and Miami Dolphins flew to London to play a game at Wembley Stadium. Reports swirled about the game being sold out with over 80,000 in attendance, but having watched a portion of this game on television, there were alot of empty seats, the field looked in poor shape, and the game was lackluster with the G-Men coming out on top 13-10, in a rainy game no one appeared to want to win. Europe has not really seemed to embrace American football in the past. One only can look back at the failed World League, NFL Europe and NFL Europa. While these teams were stocked with some players which eventually worked their way into the NFL with successful football careers, there weren't many people watching the games. Ultimately, the NFL pulled the plug on this experiment.

The Buffalo Bills are currently one of the smallest market teams in the league. As a franchise, they peaked between 1990-1993, making the Super Bowl each year, only to lose. Currently, they're a young team which shows some promise and were in the hunt for a wildcard berth up until the final few weeks of this season. Buffalo is a tough place to live. Of all the NFL cities, Buffalo has the highest annual snowfall rate coupled with dire economic conditions. Goodell should understand this, he was born in Jamestown, a Western New York city which used to be known as the Furniture Capital of the World, but no longer is. Bills' team owner, Ralph Wilson, 89, has said the Bills aren't for sale, but when he passes away, the team will be for sale to the highest bidder. In October of this year, Wilson made a presentation to other NFL team owners with a desire to start moving Bills home games over the next 5 years into Toronto Canada playing on the home field of the Canadian Football Leagues' Toronto Argonauts, the Rogers Centre. Then, football fans were stunned early this past October when Goodell stated, "There's a great deal of interest in holding the Super Bowl in London, so we'll be looking at that." What? Interest from whom? Certainly not the fans of individual teams. Given all the issues regarding air travel, terrorism and cost associated with going to the Super Bowl here in the United States, does The Big Game REALLY need to be abroad? I think not.

The NFL is a multi-billion dollar juggernaut which always seems to get it's way, from the exclusive club of 32 owners to the way the NFL stomps out illegal sales of unlicensed merchandise. Owners extort communities to spend tax dollars to finance new stadiums, while adding luxury boxes to line their pockets. 115 million taxpayer dollars were spent post haste to refurbish the Louisiana Superdome after Hurricane Katrina. One of the tantalizing selling points teams use to lure public financing for new diggs, is the opportunity to host a Super Bowl and all the tourist revenue associated with the event. Now the league is exploring the possibility of sending the largest sporting event in the US, overseas. The NFL owners will be voting soon on whether or not to allow the Bills to move some of their home games to Toronto. Canada already has their style of football, the CFL. There are two teams which would be greatly affected by a Bills presence in Toronto, even on a short term basis, the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger Cats, the later already suffering attendance issues. Argonauts owners David Cynamon and Howard Sokolowski commented in the Halifax Daily News November 25th of last year, that if a permanent move of the Buffalo Bills to Canada was realized, that action could jeopardize the integrity of their league.

As the NFL seeks international expansion of their product, we still do not have a professional franchise in the second largest media market of US, Los Angeles. Buffalo, New Orleans and Minnesota make grumblings about moving, perhaps the league should be looking at keeping teams here instead of exporting their product. Then again, if there is the lure of huge financial returns teams could start moving abroad. I wouldn't be surprised to see Tom Benson and his umbrella doing his boogie down the Champs Elysee if the money was right.