NFL Merry-Go-Round: Relocation Roundelay

[Red Comet]

30 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

The moment that the European Union and Congress repeal time zones, then we can take that expansion seriously.  But so long as London remains seven or eight hours ahead of Los Angeles, the idea is laughable on its face.

 

It isn't even time zones IMO, its the inevitable kvetching from the London squad that its unfair how far they have to travel that will torpedo European expansion unless it all comes at once. 

 

You'd have to create entirely new 4 team divisions for the AFC and NFC made entirely of European teams to even begin to blunt such a complaint. 

 

EDIT: I'd say it would go like this:

 

AFC Europe:

London

Paris

Amsterdam

Cologne

 

NFC Europe:

Düsseldorf 

Hamburg

Frankfurt

Berlin

 

[Gothamite]

At some point, though, that European division would have to play against an American team.

 

And that's when you'd need to repeal time zones.

[Red Comet]

3 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

At some point, though, that European division would have to play against an American team.

 

And that's when you'd need to repeal time zones.

 

How does repealing time zones help with jet lag?

[Gothamite]

8 minutes ago, Red Comet said:

How does repealing time zones help with jet lag?

 

 

[Red Comet]

I can't believe I thought you were serious. Because if you were, I'd say that's the dumbest idea I've ever heard since the idea of getting rid of offensive pass interference. 

 

That and China actually did get rid of multiple time zones. 

[Gothamite]

 

 

Of course eliminating time zones is nonsensical claptrap.

 

Which means it makes slightly more sense than an NFL team based in Europe.  Because that's actually what it would take.

[kimball]

The only expansion I see happening is the NFL expanding the season to 17 games with the extra game either played in London or Mexico City so that both locations have eight games each. Gets more exposure, no extra teams, blah, blah, blah, blah ...

[Red Comet]

46 minutes ago, Gothamite said:

 

 

Of course eliminating time zones is nonsensical claptrap.

 

Which means it makes slightly more sense than an NFL team based in Europe.  Because that's actually what it would take.

 

Yeah it would take something like a spaceplane being a real thing. Don't know how many players want to go into orbit just to get halfway around the world in an hour, though.

[Cosmic]

7 hours ago, Red Comet said:

 

Yeah it would take something like a spaceplane being a real thing. Don't know how many players want to go into orbit just to get halfway around the world in an hour, though.

I've posted about this before, but it just happened to be in the news again today, so... Space Plane

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

On 9/25/2019 at 11:40 AM, Red Comet said:

It isn't even time zones IMO, its the inevitable kvetching from the London squad that its unfair how far they have to travel that will torpedo European expansion unless it all comes at once. 

 

You don't think a London team would have a normal schedule of home one week, away the next week, home the next week, etc., do you?

 

The London team would play the season in four chunks.  It would spend the first quarter of the season in the U.S., travelling from one opponent's city to the next. This team's travel would thus be no greater than that of any other team. Then the team would go home to London for four games, with no travel at all.  

 

This pattern would then be repeated for the season's second half.

 

The main problem would be the expense of housing players and staff in hotels continuously for half the season. Also, players might not really enjoy these two segments of the season. But they could comfort themselves with the thought of those two sweet month-long homestands with no travelling at all.

 

The travelling presents no insurmountable logistical hurdles, as proven by the fact that teams travel London now. There will be four games in London this season, all in October and early November. There's no reason that this October schedule could not repeated in December. 

 

Every team that travels to London gets a bye the following week. So byes would no longer end at week 12, but would continue to the final week for the London team's opponents.  And the game in London in the season's final week would probably have to be on a Thursday or Friday, to accommodate the start of the playoffs the following week.

 

This would be possible only if there were a singke European-based team. The logistics of an entire European division are unimaginable.

[Red Comet]

1 hour ago, Cosmic said:

I've posted about this before, but it just happened to be in the news again today, so... Space Plane

 

And just as jet engines made continent-wide leagues feasible, space plane tech will make worldwide leagues feasible. Obviously, we're getting a global soccer league first. Would make promotion and relegation get real interesting. Wait, wrong football.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

12 hours ago, Red Comet said:

 

And just as jet engines made continent-wide leagues feasible, space plane tech will make worldwide leagues feasible. Obviously, we're getting a global soccer league first. Would make promotion and relegation get real interesting. Wait, wrong football.

 

Just bring back the Concorde and we're all set.

 

Easy.

[Luigi74]

15 hours ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

You don't think a London team would have a normal schedule of home one week, away the next week, home the next week, etc., do you?

 

The London team would play the season in four chunks.  It would spend the first quarter of the season in the U.S., travelling from one opponent's city to the next. This team's travel would thus be no greater than that of any other team. Then the team would go home to London for four games, with no travel at all.  

 

This pattern would then be repeated for the season's second half.

 

The main problem would be the expense of housing players and staff in hotels continuously for half the season. Also, players might not really enjoy these two segments of the season. But they could comfort themselves with the thought of those two sweet month-long homestands with no travelling at all.

 

The travelling presents no insurmountable logistical hurdles, as proven by the fact that teams travel London now. There will be four games in London this season, all in October and early November. There's no reason that this October schedule could not repeated in December. 

 

Every team that traveld to London gets a bye the following week. So byes would no longer end at week 12, but would continue to the final week for the London team's opponents.  And the game in London in the season's final week would probably have to be on a Thursday or Friday, to accommodate the start of the playoffs the following week.

 

This would be possible only if there were a singke European-based team. The logistics of an entire European division are unimaginable.

You don't think that they could pull it off with two teams? Either two in the UK or a London team and a team in Paris or Dublin? Put one in each conference, set the schedule up so when one team is on a four game home stand the other is in the US on a four week road trip, have a practice facility stateside the teams would share when they're over here and do the same over there for visiting teams. 

[Ferdinand Cesarano]

32 minutes ago, ltp74 said:

You don't think that they could pull it off with two teams? Either two in the UK or a London team and a team in Paris or Dublin? Put one in each conference, set the schedule up so when one team is on a four game home stand the other is in the US on a four week road trip, have a practice facility stateside the teams would share when they're over here and do the same over there for visiting teams. 

 

I think the costs involved in housing one European team in hotels for half the season are pretty exhorbidant.  It might even cost more than the whole project would earn; but the value in publicity and of the raising of the league's global profile would probably make this work the investment.  But to double that cost, to have to house two Euro-based teams in a series of hotels around the U.S.?  I would bet that that would push the thing too far.

 

Also, the scheduling thing comes into play.  To arrange the schedule to give the eight opponents who have to fly to London a bye is difficult enough; but to have to do this for the opponents of another team as well seems to me to stretch into the realm of the impossible. So my guess is that, if a European expansion is going to happen, it will be with one team in London, and that's it.

[Red Comet]

Again, European (or any expansion outside North America, really), is unfeasible without a major breakthrough in transportation technology. Yeah, the Concorde was a thing but it cost, what, $10,000 per ticket (which would be like $17,000 now)? Before we get into noise complaints or safety issues, the price point alone would cause teams to lose a lot of money on flights as NFL teams usually require 2 planes to ship staff/benchwarmers as well.

 

Something like a spaceplane as @Cosmic has linked will be that breakthrough. Until then, you might as well put an NFL team on the Moon.

[TBGKon]

When the invention of a new type of rocket engine is the justification for overseas expansion of a national league......you know you've jumped the shark into something that really isnt feasible.

[Red Comet]

38 minutes ago, AstroBull21 said:

When the invention of a new type of rocket engine is the justification for overseas expansion of a national league......you know you've jumped the shark into something that really isnt feasible.

 

I'm going based off of historical precedent. When rail travel was the most prevalent form of transportation in the US, there wasn't any established major league team in any league west of St. Louis (or Minneapolis if you count the NBA as a major league in the 40s/50s). 

 

Once jet travel became a thing, sports leagues started expanding/relocating to the West Coast as now you could have teams routinely travel there in a few hours rather than a few days and that's where we are now. 

 

That's why I came to the conclusion I came to.

 

Right now? Yeah, expanding to Europe is a stupid idea. But if we get to a point where a flight from London to Sydney takes 4 hours (about the time it takes to get from Miami to Denver IIRC) and the price to do so is on par with current jet travel? Then international expansion no longer looks stupid.

[GDAWG]

I am sure that super fast air travel is somewhere in the back of the mind of Elon Musk and that he'll put it on the forefront as soon as his goal of people on Mars is complete.

[IceCap]

1 hour ago, Red Comet said:

Again, European (or any expansion outside North America, really), is unfeasible without a major breakthrough in transportation technology. Yeah, the Concorde was a thing but it cost, what, $10,000 per ticket (which would be like $17,000 now)? Before we get into noise complaints or safety issues, the price point alone would cause teams to lose a lot of money on flights as NFL teams usually require 2 planes to ship staff/benchwarmers as well.

It's been a while since Concord was retired. I don't think you can use prices based on 1970s tech in the 1990s as a ballpark for what a supersonic ticket would cost with 2020s technology behind it. 

 

Regardless all of the mental gymnastics on display here illustrates why a NFL team in Europe is unworkable at present. 

 

And yeah the space plane is cool, but it's probably a century off from being feasible at a commercial level. So it's a mute point. 

[Red Comet]

12 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

It's been a while since Concord was retired. I don't think you can use prices based on 1970s tech in the 1990s as a ballpark for what a supersonic ticket would cost with 2020s technology behind it. 

 

Regardless all of the mental gymnastics on display here illustrates why a NFL team in Europe is unworkable at present. 

 

And yeah the space plane is cool, but it's probably a century off from being feasible at a commercial level. So it's a mute point. 

 

You're right about the price probably being much cheaper but even if it was more like $5,000 per ticket, it would still cost more money flying a team to/from Europe than whatever profit would be made per game. 

 

Of course expansion to Europe is unfeasible right now. That's why I used the precedent of jet technology with continentwide expansion following a decade/two decades afterwards as the precedent. 

 

Optimistically? I'm thinking that it won't be until 2050 until the tech necessary to make expansion to Europe feasible will be widely available. And that's assuming no major political/social obstacles interfere. And they will.