Future NFL Expansion?

[TakeTheBallDeep]

The people in Utah would love an NFL team in Salt Lake City. Lots of college sports in the area and they support the Jazz very well 

[7DnBrnc53]

Expansion would be dumb. The NFL should get rid of four teams.

[Buddyboy]

In the next decade the league will expand into Canada. At least five cities become viable, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

[RaidersAreOne]

52 minutes ago, Buddyboy said:

In the next decade the league will expand into Canada. At least five cities become viable, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

I'd love it.

[Heinz D.]

1 hour ago, Buddyboy said:

In the next decade the league will expand into Canada. At least five cities become viable, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

What does that do to the CFL? 

[DigInBoys]

Places like Salt Lake City, Calgary, and Edmonton cannot support NFL teams.

[Boknows34]

7 hours ago, DigInBoys said:

Places like Salt Lake City, Calgary, and Edmonton cannot support NFL teams.

Agreed. They’re ideal for the NBA and NHL with a shared 18-20,000 seat arena, but just don’t have the market size for the NFL. 

Also worth noting that up until a few years ago the Bills played one game per season in Toronto, but the series was eventually scrapped in 2014 after attendances fell below 40,000. Compare that with London which sold out all 3 games this season at Wembley with 85,000 spectators. 

 

 

[Buc Ball]

23 hours ago, lomaxgrUK said:

I honestly think a London franchise will be a total flop. The UK sporting base as a whole will never, ever accept a sport that actually stops for commercial breaks as opposed to commercial breaks prior to the game and during half time/scheduled intervals in the game.

I guess the powers that be have access to Marketing data that I don't, but whilst I have seen an increase in the amount of people I know taking an interest in the sport these last 5 years or so, none would go out of there way to get behind a London franchise.

It's one thing to go to a game or two a year but it's a totally different matter to expect people to get a season ticket for 8 games. Most UK sport fans (Soccer in particular) don't have to travel far at all to home fixtures and won't be willing to pay the outrageous train travel fees (along with expensive ticketing) 8 times a year, every year to support a London franchise.

My guess is that the NFL would be banking on hundreds of thousands of different people attending each game from around Europe as opposed to season ticket holders which in my opinion, isn't healthy for the sport.

I for one wouldn't change my allegiance to a London franchise anyway and I know many hardcore UK NFL fans who feel the same way.

This is exactly my view on it too.

If the NFL wants to expand the game outside of the US with a view to improving interest and the sport as a whole, the best approach would be to support a European professional league (again).

It might not win a significant amount of fans in the short term, but it should increase the number of European players and coaches making it to major college programmes and filtering up to the NFL. 

That will get the league good publicity in Europe and should result in more fans watching the sport in the long term.

[Buddyboy]

Look at the pattern of NFL Europe. The London Monarchs were the first to fold. At the end they were all clustered in Germany.

Novelty wears off with familiarity.

[TXsteeler]

23 hours ago, Kiltman said:

Feel like there isn't a ton of space for it now, both with players

I feel like this is the biggest problem.

Correct me if I'm wrong but after a quick googling, NBA teams carry 15 people max, NHL teams 23, and MLB teams 25 (not counting the extra 15 players in lower leagues).

NFL teams have 53 players and 5 practice squad guys and all of them are playing only for the NFL while under contract, there is no "minor league".

Most teams already carry a few guys every year who aren't really NFL quality players but are needed for depth, this is especially evident in positions like QB and kicker. For every added team we get, that is 53 more players needed plus you have to account for all the players IR'd by each team each year. Conceivably if we add more teams, we will add more total games. This means that that average skill level of an NFL player, especially by playoffs, is considerably lower.

Normally this sort of problem would be solved by the sport becoming more popular and by more kids playing it, but the problem the NFL has in that regard is twofold. Firstly, the level of play achieved by top NFL athletes is so high that it requires a combination of genetic excellence and intense training by a young age that isn't easily aquired, so the sport being popular like baseball just isn't enough to keep the teams full of talent. Secondly, with all of the CTE and similar news coming out lately it is likely (I am assuming, I've seen no data) that the number of kids choosing to play football at a young age will decrease. I would guess these impacts will largely be felt in about 10 to 15 years and only get worse from there.

Obviously one way to combat this is by expanding outside of the US where the game is less popular in order to increase the pool of young kids playing the game on a much broader scale, but that has its own problems. Another option is for the NFL to invest more heavily in things like farm leagues and the NCAA and such to try and increase the quality of fringe level players. If none of those work, the NFL is stuck in a position where they will need to get the viewers to accept lower quality play in order for them to expand, and at that rate it becomes a matter of whether or not the juice is worth the squeeze for the current owners.

[JBURGE]

16 hours ago, Heinz D. said:

17 hours ago, Buddyboy said:

In the next decade the league will expand into Canada. At least five cities become viable, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

What does that do to the CFL? 

Edmonton and Calgary aren't options because of the CFL imo. The CFL is strong out West, however Toronto would be a fantastic market because no one here cares about the CFL. I think a Toronto / London / Mexico City / +1 of an expansion would work, the logistics would be the problem 

[areksoo]

 

16 hours ago, Buddyboy said:

In the next decade the league will expand into Canada. At least five cities become viable, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton.

Yeah... no.  Vancouver couldn't even support a NBA franchise.  I don't think the NFL would survive there. 

Montreal are filled with fickle people.  They might support a team, as when the Alouettes were good, the fans came out in droves.  But when you talk to those fans, they actually have a hatred for NFL.  Also now that the Alouettes suck (even with Johnny Football LOL), their attendance dropped dramatically.  

And speaking of low attendance, Toronto has the worst attendance in the CFL.  It's not that Toronto fans aren't football fans, they just don't care about the CFL.  For the most part Toronto only cares about the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and MLS.  Everything else is just a side attraction.  Argos won the Grey Cup 2 years ago and I've seen more Canadians at a Bills game in Buffalo than who showed up for their victory parade.  But Toronto is definitely on Goodell's radar.  4th largest city and filled with big corporations.  When you look at the Leafs, Raptors and Jays, they have solid attendance, high ticket prices, and a crap ton of luxury boxes and prime seating that corporations spend millions of dollars on every year.  

NFL wants big metropolitan cities... while Calgary ranks 20th and Edmonton is 33rd in population in North America, they probably have their eyes on Toronto first (and only them really).  Also it doesn't help that oil price drops is killing the Alberta economically.

 

6 hours ago, Boknows34 said:

Agreed. They’re ideal for the NBA and NHL with a shared 18-20,000 seat arena, but just don’t have the market size for the NFL. 

Also worth noting that up until a few years ago the Bills played one game per season in Toronto, but the series was eventually scrapped in 2014 after attendances fell below 40,000. Compare that with London which sold out all 3 games this season at Wembley with 85,000 spectators. 

 

 

It's also worth noting that with the Bills games in Toronto, they were forcing you to buy pre-season tickets with the regular season tickets at the same price and that price per ticket was more expensive than the highest ticket prices in all of the NFL.  Then they reduced the ticket prices and got rid of the "bundled preseason games", but it still was the most expensive.  How can you get away with that when the Bills have one of the cheapest ticket prices in the NFL?  The running joke was you could buy season tickets to the Bills cheaper than the Bills in Toronto.

Not only that but the games sucked.  The Bills used their worst match ups playing teams that either terrible or just not popular in Toronto.  On top of that, Bills players noted they hated playing in Toronto because it didn't feel like a home game.  Their performance on field showed that with a 1-5 record.

Torontonians who want to watch a live NFL game could do that OR just drive 90 minutes to Buffalo, spend less money and watch a better match up.  Ralph Wilson and Ted Rogers were really trying to gouge Canadians, but turned off a lot of fans by doing so.  Reasonable pricing and a team to call our own and you won't see any issues with attendance.

[x0x]

I tend to know the Toronto sports scene quite well, I have SS for the Raptors and have numerous options for STH's for the Jays and Argos, but I stopped largely with the NHL and go minor league hockey.

I use to strongly believe in the NFL in Toronto but the last 10 years have convinced me it'll probably never happen. Not in any particular order but my main points:

1. NFL tickets are largely higher end, as much as we here joke about the Bills or Lions, it's a big stadium experience so $70 for nosebleeds dies down if the team isn't at least decent. Add to that the competition with the Raps and Leafs. Pound for pound, you cannot compete with ticket prices ahead of those two teams, right now for the Raps at least and never the Leafs.

2. A comparable NFL stadium would have to be Ford Field with a capacity of 65,000. The Skydome at max was able to get 54,000 and the Skydome is a non-starter. The Argos currently play at BMO Field with a 25,000 capacity which they share with MLS. Considering the ACC is getting on in years too and will come before any NFL-type stadium I don't see anything on the horizon. With the 2026 FIFA hosting duties, BMO Field will get an upgrade to 45,000 but that's still not cutting it.

3. Pecking order in Toronto is always going to be hockey first and our secondary teams have no problems getting fans out. The Raptors with their recent surge and the Jays when relevant are going to be hard to replace unless they both suck mightily. But then you now have MLS making healthy inroads and believe me the make-up of Toronto will only help soccer and I don't see many of those fans for football. We also have Lacrosse which is a bit of a joke now because the team has struggle as of late and then all the other events the city has to offer. The whole tailgating aspect of football is just not the same and after a few seasons of novelty, a 6-7 win team would be in trouble, never-mind 3 win disasters. The ultimate nightmare scenario is if you had say a 5 year stretch of poor performance while 3 of 4 other pro teams are doing good-great. The losses could be staggering in such a scenario.

The last thing about the Argos here so everyone knows, the corporate money makes up for poor attendance on account of the salaries being so damn low. Basically out of the 9 home games, as long as you have 3-4 strong showings, which based on holidays you usually do, the rest of the time isn't so important. A lot of business people just meet up to talk not necessarily watch the games, so that's kind of how it works.

[x0x]

8 hours ago, Buddyboy said:

Look at the pattern of NFL Europe. The London Monarchs were the first to fold. At the end they were all clustered in Germany.

Novelty wears off with familiarity.

I think in the far future, an all-EU division with Germany, Netherlands and England makes the most sense. Amsterdam flights can often be the cheapest way to Europe and there's a lot to do. Berlin is a modern city and clearly supported NFL Europe from beginning to end so traction. In this scenario England would be looked at support 2 teams, Manchester and London. I recall the Barcelona Dragons lasting for a while with mediocre to bad teams so perhaps again maybe?

Anyway you look at it I think the NFL would have to be prepared all these teams losing money in the first few years to establish a brand.

[Buddyboy]

The league might want to start new in Toronto but relocate the Jaguars to London where a stadium with Spurs opens in March.