London Calling: The Globalization of the NFL

After reading the article London Calling, I have many thoughts about the possibility of the NFL moving to London. I have three main thoughts: NFL would be hurting players in order to make more money, there are too many scheduling issues, and it wouldn't insure that the move to London would be profitable.

In the article, Bill Barnwell, explains the negative implications of traveling to another country. One of his main points is the fact that by moving to London, we would be taking a negative tole on the players' bodies. He explains that the flight to London, is lengthy and players would have to adjust to a different time zone. The fact that players would have to fly out to London, and then immediately fly back to the states would cause players to be extremely jet lagged. I agree with Barnwell's claims. I couldn't imagine flying to another country for just a few days, and then returning home immediately. There is no way, that I would not be jet lagged. Crossing over the ocean and into different time zones, would most likely mess up the sleep schedules for athletes. There is discussion of making a satellite location to where the London team could practice at in the states. My question is, why have a satellite program if you have facilities in the US? It makes me wonder, if London is the best location.

Barnewell also brings up the issues of scheduling. Toward the end of his article, he discusses how the NFL would have to make specific changes to a teams scheduling in London. There would be an issue of right after having a team go to London, they would have a by-game. This would be really unfair to the teams that have to travel to London early in their season because they would have to play consecutive games for the rest of the season. The fact that it could also be unfair for the London team because they would try to schedule away games in bulk and then home games in bulk, in order to decrease travel expenses. I agree that these changes would affect the athletes directly. I could also see how fans could be affected by that. The inconsistency of when there would be home games and away games could make some fans unhappy.

Lastly Barnwell also brings up the issue that we can't be positive that through globalizing the NFL, if it would be profitable. He claims in his article that even though stadiums get filled when NFL teams travel to London once in a while, we can't be sure that Europeans would be willing to spend excess amounts of money to watch a team. In the article he quotes a fan saying that, "it was a no brainer to travel...". Barnwell doubts that europeans would be likely to spend hundreds of euros more than once a season in order to travel and watch the NFL play in London. He also brings up the point that most europeans are fans of the NFL and not a specific team. This also plays into, that once we bring a team over to London, it is unpredictable what the fan basis would be. I definitely agree with him. Here in America, we learned that we idolize our specific regional/state teams, and if London's fans don't connect with the American players, what would happen? Also, would the NFL open up the team to europeans or would it strictly be Americans on the London football team?

Overall, I think that by Globalizing the NFL would take a negative toll on the players and the organization itself. I believe that because American Society takes a very unique role around sports, it is impossible for us to judge if it would be successful in London. I believe that the negative implications far outweigh the good of this situation. Ultimately, sports are changing and it is unpredictable to know what will happen; however, we as americans, must not forget about where sport has originated from. Do we want to ignore the sport itself in order to make more money?

References:
London Calling: Bill Barnwell