Arthur Blank believes London could have at least one NFL team
The NFL has had an ever growing presence in London, England over the past decade. America’s most widely adored sport is now making major strides in Europe, and some believe that the NFL could soon have a team in London.
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One such person is Atlanta Falcons owner, Arthur Blank. The Falcons gave up one of their home games this season to go overseas and play the Detroit Lions in London.
Blank believes that this international expansion into London is just the beginning.
“The games in London, I think are a tribute to the NFL, a tribute to the fans there, the quality of the game — and I think that it’s proved conclusive that fans will come out when they see the real players playing games that are really meaningful, as opposed to NFL Europe,” Blank said, via NFL.com.
“So I think — and all three of the games for 2014 sold out immediately, 240,000 tickets — the league, as you know, has been in discussion about a fourth game, in discussion about games beyond that. There’s been discussion about potentially having a franchise in London. I’m very optimistic.”
The league has slowly but surely added more games to the international series, and Blank believes that more is to come:
“I think it will start with an increased number of games,” Blank said. “That will be translated into a very successful series of games, and eventually, I think a franchise. And maybe more than one. London’s a big city.”
The NFL has an affinity in discussing expansion plans nearly every year. Whether it is discussing the potential for new franchises in Los Angeles, or expanding the amount of teams in the NFL Playoffs, fans are simply going to be treated to more and more football every year.