(08-06-2013 09:43 PM)john01992 Wrote:  

(08-06-2013 09:18 PM)oklalittledixie Wrote:  Sports are no longer about sports. It's all about greed.

agreed

No, it is about viability. Take a look back over the last 100 years of American sports history. This is by far the most stable and non "cut-throat" era. There have been leagues coming, going, merging, consolidating, expanding, and totally abandoning cities much more than occurs now.

(08-06-2013 09:10 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  London or any other city in Europe would be a huge mistake. Soccer rules all of Europe followed by rugby in some countries and basketball and hockey in others. I could see the NBA being more successful in Europe than the NFL. The Jaguars need to move to L.A. once they build that stadium if not L.A. then maybe Toronto, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Portland, etc might be better choices.

Didn't the NFL learned anything from their failed venture in NFL Europe?

Not an apples to apples comparison at all.

People in Europe knew they were being fed a pile of ****. The players they were watching were not star players. They were getting an inferior product.

A real NFL team in Europe would do quite well. I'd personally rather see the NFL expand into Canada if it is going international, but I have no problems with a team in London.

A London NFL team would probably have an unusually good home record and an unusually bad road record. Two words: Jet Lag.

(08-07-2013 09:30 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(08-06-2013 09:10 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  London or any other city in Europe would be a huge mistake. Soccer rules all of Europe followed by rugby in some countries and basketball and hockey in others. I could see the NBA being more successful in Europe than the NFL. The Jaguars need to move to L.A. once they build that stadium if not L.A. then maybe Toronto, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Portland, etc might be better choices.

Didn't the NFL learned anything from their failed venture in NFL Europe?

Not an apples to apples comparison at all.

People in Europe knew they were being fed a pile of ****. The players they were watching were not star players. They were getting an inferior product.

A real NFL team in Europe would do quite well. I'd personally rather see the NFL expand into Canada if it is going international, but I have no problems with a team in London.

In reality only Toronto and Vancouver are slam dunks. Montreal is big enough but will they embrace anglo football? Edmonton and Calgary might work too. Ottawa and Quebec City are a tad too small. The NFL if they went into Canada might kill off the CFL which is a bad thing IMHO.

(08-07-2013 09:30 AM)Niner National Wrote:  

(08-06-2013 09:10 PM)UTEPDallas Wrote:  London or any other city in Europe would be a huge mistake. Soccer rules all of Europe followed by rugby in some countries and basketball and hockey in others. I could see the NBA being more successful in Europe than the NFL. The Jaguars need to move to L.A. once they build that stadium if not L.A. then maybe Toronto, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Portland, etc might be better choices.

Didn't the NFL learned anything from their failed venture in NFL Europe?

Not an apples to apples comparison at all.

People in Europe knew they were being fed a pile of ****. The players they were watching were not star players. They were getting an inferior product.

A real NFL team in Europe would do quite well. I'd personally rather see the NFL expand into Canada if it is going international, but I have no problems with a team in London.

Right, similar to MLS in the United States. It is doing fine, but it will never receive NBA/MLB/NFL attention. If we had 4 teams in the U.S. that competed in the Europe league, it would be a hit. Same with NFL football in 4 cities in Europe. It would work in, say, London, Berlin, Barcelona, and Paris. Besides, there are enough American expats in or near those cities to immediately start a solid fan base.

(08-07-2013 09:37 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  In reality only Toronto and Vancouver are slam dunks. Montreal is big enough but will they embrace anglo football? Edmonton and Calgary might work too. Ottawa and Quebec City are a tad too small. The NFL if they went into Canada might kill off the CFL which is a bad thing IMHO.

Vancouver won't work b/c of the Seahawks. There's a LOT of Seahawk fans in Vancouver. Similar to Buffalo / Toronto, they're practically twin cities. IMO, the best bets in Canada are Calgary and Montreal. Calgary is about 3 hrs closer to the USA than Edmonton and Edmonton is a pretty horrible sports city. Edm has a serious transient population due to being the gateway to the oil sands.

Flight times from the east coast to west coast range from 5.5 to 6.5 hours. Flight times from the east coast (including Chicago) to London range from 8.0 to 8.5 hours. I don't see jet lag being that much worse. Especially considering the London team would likely stay in the US for a couple of weeks per trip.

The NFL has ~1700 players. I am going to make a bold prediction and say that 1,699 of them would rather play/live in London than Jacksonville.

(08-07-2013 09:57 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  Flight times from the east coast to west coast range from 5.5 to 6.5 hours. Flight times from the east coast (including Chicago) to London range from 8.0 to 8.5 hours. I don't see jet lag being that much worse. Especially considering the London team would likely stay in the US for a couple of weeks per trip.

The NFL has ~1700 players. I am going to make a bold prediction and say that 1,699 of them would rather play/live in London than Jacksonville.

I am still baffled why Jacksonville did not 1) draft, 2) trade for pennies on the dollar, or 3) sign as a street free agent for half pennies on the dollar the one and only Timothy Tebow. I guess Jacksonville does not like money. They would be sold out every game and lead the league in merch sales, not to mention the barrage of media coverage. He is a demi-god in that part of Florida.

I didn't read all the replies, im sure everyone disagrees with the OP. My idea is the Jags move to L.A. and the AFC West, the Chiefs move to the AFC South.

AFC West:
Oakland Raiders
Los Angeles Jaguars
San Diego Chargers
Denver Broncos

AFC South:
Indianapolis Colts
Houston Texans
Kansas City Chiefs
Tennessee Titans

Both make geographic sense.

(08-07-2013 09:57 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  Flight times from the east coast to west coast range from 5.5 to 6.5 hours. Flight times from the east coast (including Chicago) to London range from 8.0 to 8.5 hours. I don't see jet lag being that much worse. Especially considering the London team would likely stay in the US for a couple of weeks per trip.

The NFL has ~1700 players. I am going to make a bold prediction and say that 1,699 of them would rather play/live in London than Jacksonville.

The bolded part is key. They would definitely schedule it so that that was minimized.

It is much easier in the NFL than in other sports anyway since you only play once per week.

the europe expansion is interesting... they would have to drastically redivide the divisions and move the perennial losers overseas... what id do is create 4 divisions of 8 teams each with initial european expansion at 4 teams first then add another 4 teams 3-5 years later depending on the success of such a venture

i think the nfl realizes it has lots of fans in canada and mexico which pretty much nixes the expansion in those two countries (even though it makes practical sense to expand there first)...

(08-07-2013 11:31 AM)NJRedMan Wrote:  I didn't read all the replies, im sure everyone disagrees with the OP. My idea is the Jags move to L.A. and the AFC West, the Chiefs move to the AFC South.

AFC West:
Oakland Raiders
Los Angeles Jaguars
San Diego Chargers
Denver Broncos

AFC South:
Indianapolis Colts
Houston Texans
Kansas City Chiefs
Tennessee Titans

Both make geographic sense.

A better idea, IMO, is for the Jaguars to move to LA and take the Rams name. The St. Louis Rams become the St. Louis Stallions. The two teams swap conference/divisions. The LA Jaguar/Rams go to the NFC West and the St. Louis Rams/Stallions go to the AFC South.

(08-07-2013 08:20 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  The NFL doesn't make many big mistakes but they sure did in giving Jacksonville a team. I still have no idea what the NFL was thinking when they gave Jacksonville a team. It was stupid at the time and it looks even more stupid in retrospect.

It was a brilliant business decision by the NFL actually. We know the Panthers were the first vote and St. Louis was supposed to get the second team but the ownership situation was with two groups. The first and main group was with Jerry Lincoln, a big Budweiser distributor in St. Louis, Fran Murray, and James Orthwein, who owned the Patriots. The original plan was for Murray to own the new franchise; he was a part owner of the Patriots before but ironically he didn’t have any money either. After Murray got the new St. Louis franchise, he was going to switch it with the Patriots that Orthwein owned. Murray was then going to move the Pats to Hartford. At the same time, Stan Kroenke steps forward with a group made up of other prominent St. Louis business owners. This turned out to be a very solid NFL ownership group i.e. they had the money to do it. Trouble was Orthwein held the lease to the Dome. The first group also backed out of the ownership late.

Well the second team was awarded to Jacksonville. Baltimore had a strong bid, just as strong as St. Louis with a stadium in place. They had 3 ownership groups running for it. One was Malcolm Glazer; the other was Al Learner, and a third. Trouble was a lawsuit was going to be brought out if Learner won the team by the third group. Jacksonville had no law suits and Weaver was a strong owner.

Guess who was on that expansion committee – Art Modell. Of course we know Modell moved the Ravens to Baltimore. Guess who got the Browns expansion team – Learner. Look who bought the Bucs – Glazer.

Now back to St. Louis, well Orthwein wanted to move the Patriots to St. Louis trouble was he couldn’t get out of the lease at Foxboro Stadium. Remember who bought that – Bob Kraft. Kraft wouldn’t allow them out of it for any price, so in 1994 Orthwein sold the Pats to Kraft. With him no longer in the picture it allowed Kroenke to help get the Rams to St. Louis.

Of course Bud Adams then moved the Oilers to Nashville via Memphis.

Essentially 10 teams were affected by the expansion of 1993.
New England
Carolina
Jacksonville
St. Louis
Oakland
Baltimore
Tennessee
Tampa Bay
Cleveland
Houston

The league got new or remodeled stadiums in all of those markets and outside of Los Angeles market have wrapped up all of the major US markets.

(08-07-2013 09:57 AM)Wolfman Wrote:  Flight times from the east coast to west coast range from 5.5 to 6.5 hours. Flight times from the east coast (including Chicago) to London range from 8.0 to 8.5 hours. I don't see jet lag being that much worse. Especially considering the London team would likely stay in the US for a couple of weeks per trip.

The NFL has ~1700 players. I am going to make a bold prediction and say that 1,699 of them would rather play/live in London than Jacksonville.

I think you'd be dead wrong based just on the income taxes alone. And I don't care what they think they can do to mitigate travel times. They better pull the Concorde out of mothballs if they plan to do this.

This is all just some kind of comprehensive bluff to get a better deal out of Los Angeles.

Jerry Clinton was the Budweiser distributer in St. Louis. I believe he held the lease to the dome, but the NFL wanted to give the franchise to the other ownership group.

(08-07-2013 12:53 PM)Gopper Wrote:  the europe expansion is interesting... they would have to drastically redivide the divisions and move the perennial losers overseas... what id do is create 4 divisions of 8 teams each with initial european expansion at 4 teams first then add another 4 teams 3-5 years later depending on the success of such a venture

i think the nfl realizes it has lots of fans in canada and mexico which pretty much nixes the expansion in those two countries (even though it makes practical sense to expand there first)...

Problem w/ Canada is that all of the large cities except Ottawa (and they're not that large) have CFL franchises. there's about a 2 month overlap (4 if you count NFL preseason) between CFL season and NFL season. I'm not sure if Canadians want to get involved with that conflict even though NFL is very popular here.

If I was to pick a foreign city to place a team it would be Mexico City. I know safety could be a concern but they love our football down there. Not only will a city root for a team but more than likely the entire city.

(08-07-2013 11:31 AM)NJRedMan Wrote:  I didn't read all the replies, im sure everyone disagrees with the OP. My idea is the Jags move to L.A. and the AFC West, the Chiefs move to the AFC South.

AFC West:
Oakland Raiders
Los Angeles Jaguars
San Diego Chargers
Denver Broncos

AFC South:
Indianapolis Colts
Houston Texans
Kansas City Chiefs
Tennessee Titans

Both make geographic sense.

you clearly know nothing about the history of the AFC west, the Chiefs will never be moved out of that division. All 4 teams are from the AFL and are the original 4 members of that division. Interestingly enough, Denver is the only team that hasn't moved cities while a member of the division.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AFC_West

(08-07-2013 03:09 PM)lew240z Wrote:  

(08-07-2013 11:31 AM)NJRedMan Wrote:  I didn't read all the replies, im sure everyone disagrees with the OP. My idea is the Jags move to L.A. and the AFC West, the Chiefs move to the AFC South.

AFC West:
Oakland Raiders
Los Angeles Jaguars
San Diego Chargers
Denver Broncos

AFC South:
Indianapolis Colts
Houston Texans
Kansas City Chiefs
Tennessee Titans

Both make geographic sense.

A better idea, IMO, is for the Jaguars to move to LA and take the Rams name. The St. Louis Rams become the St. Louis Stallions. The two teams swap conference/divisions. The LA Jaguar/Rams go to the NFC West and the St. Louis Rams/Stallions go to the AFC South.

I do like the idea if the jaguars move to LA, then put them in the NFC West and move St. Louis to the AFC south with Houston, Tennessee and Indy. This makes perfect geographic sense.

But I don't see a need to change the franchise names though. The Rams have been in St. Louis for almost 20 years. Plus they were the Cleveland Rams before the LA Rams. LA does not have any special claim on the Rams name. Los Angeles Jaguars works just fine as a name. It is not worth the confusion to change names now.

Some other odd name changes that only confuses franchise history.
The NY Jets used to be the NY Titans.
The K.C. Chiefs used to be the Dallas Texans
The Ravens used to be the Cleveland Browns

I say enough already! If a team picks a name, it is stuck with it forever. Come on if Utah kept the Jazz name when it moved, then every team should be forced to keep its name when it moves.

(08-07-2013 08:20 AM)Dr. Isaly von Yinzer Wrote:  The NFL doesn't make many big mistakes but they sure did in giving Jacksonville a team. The Jaguars have always struggled at the gate and their market is the second smallest in the NFL behind Green Bay - which is in a very unique position. That means that even if Jacksonville starts to support the Jags in meaningful numbers, their growth potential is still quite limited. I still have no idea what the NFL was thinking when they gave Jacksonville a team. It was stupid at the time and it looks even more stupid in retrospect.

That team is definitely going to relocate - it has to. It's now only a question of when and where?

It is very clear that the NFL is highly intrigued by the possibility of a London franchise as the professional football league has been flirting with England's largest city for decades now. As such, I have given this issue a lot of thought.

I currently cannot find an official source more conclusive than a message board from city-data.com, about 2 and half years ago. But, Jacksonville is growing and may already have a Designated Market Area larger than Buffalo (NY) and New Orleans (LA)'s.

And, I doubt being in less populated areas has stopped the Packers and Saints from becoming popular. Jacksonville and north Florida are acceptable for the NFL. I think the Jaguars can do ok; they just need a consistent quarterback and some defensive players-in the secondary and on the defensive line.

I am also intrigued by the idea of the NFL expanding into London. But, I think it will become more likely if and when air travel is faster.