Would traveling during the bye week be considered an actual off week? My understanding is that the bye week essentially is a vacation week for the team. That's why you see everyone scatter during the bye week. They're relaxing. Would the players association allow owners to force players to hop on a plane and fly halfway around the world during a bye week?
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but, my understanding is that Houston entering the NFL got the number of teams back to an even number, which allowed for bye weeks to be reconfigured so that bye weeks don't happen to late in the season for any team. That's what I've always heard, anyway. Would an expansion team 5,000 miles away mess this up?
Think it'd be 2 expansion teams most likely London and LA.
I don't want people to get thinking I'm for this idea btw, I'm really not.
I think you'd have an east coast training base that would be available to teams travelling to London as well as the London team travelling to the US.
I also thnk we're too hung up on the UK 'stealing' a club, its Kraft, Goodell etc. who are pushing this because they can see the £££ in their eyes, look at Arsenal who moved from Highbury at around 32,000 seats to the Emirates Stadium with a little over 60,000 seats, and have sold out every single game ever since, with the highest ticket prices in the entire EPL and an average ticket price somewhere around £65.
Tickets for the IS cost somewhere around £100 average I believe, they have to tarp some of the lower sections of the 90,000 seater bowl because the views are obstructed by the sidelines in a way in which they aren't in soccer (most soccer stadia now have front rows that are actually slightly below pitch level to cram more people in) so they'll get say 85,000 attendees, paying £8,500,000 for their tickets, thats before all the extras such as advertising, TV rights, pie and bovril sales (remember last time I went some awful New Yorker shouting "God damn fish and chips...a guy can't even get a hawt dawg" and laughing my face off at him!
I'd be buying a shiny new Jersey specially for the occasion if I was going today, thats another £70 in their pockets...they make unbelievable money out of the one game they play. I'm sure they'll pretty much double their winnings by coming here twice from next season.
I highly doubt the kind of bottom lines they are seeing though would translate to having a full time club based in London. Its a soccer city, even with only an 8 home-game schedule I really do think the novelty would wear off pretty quickly, Im not going to travel the M6/M1 8 times a year to watch my team (not that I'd switch), but in years when the game suits my schedule I do go to the IS. As a one off.
When Jax, Tampa Bay, Miami, St. Louis give up a home game, as much as I feel for their fans, the NFL makes crazy amounts of cash compared to when they have to try selling tickets at $20 and cover the upper decks in tarps just to hide the embarrassment of a blackout.
I don't think the problem is in any kind of charter plane first class flight in which the players do not take any notice of the time difference, in fact I think an away team such as NE who get their bye week bang on mid season and who will have vastly more support within the stadium than their 'home' opponents actually get a pretty good deal out of the whole trip.
In actual fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the crowd is noticeably quieter when NE are on O and louder when NE are on D tonight. (I've heard negative comments in previous years that the crowd don't understand the game because some team like the Buccs are at home and the crowd don't shut up when they're on O, no, none of us support the Buccs!!
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This is why Kraft wants a London team, this is why Kraft pushes to have away games in London for his team every year, he knows its going to favour his team instead of playing a proper away game, and it lines his pockets considerably more than whatever ticket sales a team like St. Louis can manage.
We aren't nicking your sport off you, your greedy bastard sport wants to expand into our zone at a time when sports in general are all trying to become more global. You guys have an F1 race in Texas coming up, 20 years ago it was a European championship which went to different continents maybe 5 times a season. They're expecting as few as 4 European GP's within the next few years. And thats because it makes more money when they fly away.
) ...but the NFL doesn't 'need' to place franchises in other countries. I suspect Goodell is making this about him and his 'legacy' rather than the good of the NFL and it's fans. Anyway I've said enough about this subject on here and the other forums...I get bored of hearing myself rehash the same old same old...I'm not even concerned cuz it aint ever gonna happen!