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Goodell sees more NFL games in England

There may soon be 2 games a year played in London. From AP-

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell expects the league to start playing multiple regular-season games in Britain in the next few years — an expansion that could lead to putting a franchise in London.

Goodell said Friday that “every indicator” shows the British market can support more games and that having a franchise here is of “tremendous interest” to the league. But he stopped short of giving a timeline for expanding the NFL’s overseas presence.

“The interest and the enthusiasm for our game continues to grow, and we want to feed that,” Goodell said. “We want to respond to that by hopefully bringing more to the UK.”

Goodell spoke at a sports conference Friday ahead of Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Wembley Stadium. It’s the third year in a row the NFL is staging a regular-season game in London, and the league is now looking into playing at least two games a year in Britain, he said.

The Miami Dolphins and New York Giants played the inaugeral London game in 2007. I have intensely disliked these European games from the get go. NFL teams only get to play 8 home games a year and one is being taken away from their fans. In Miami’s case, it was a rare opportunity for them to play the New York Giants in South Florida. The Giants have only played twice in Miami ever during the regular season. Many South Floridians, including myself, are from New York originally and grew up rooting for sports teams there before our move south. We now root for the home team, and especially enjoy the games against the teams we grew up watching as kids. The NFL then takes one of these rare games away from us. Goodell isn’t a football fan and doesn’t know how much I hate him for these dumb London games and I’m sure there are many other U.S. based football fans who feel the same.

 
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