The NFL’s annual trek across the pond for a game in London once again bring sup the question about when the city will get an NFL franchise to call their own.
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With the NFL playing a regular season game in London for the eighth straight year with the Miami Dolphins taking on the Oakland Raiders, the dream of having a franchise across the pond could be nearing a reality.
One NFL executive thinks it could happen in the next seven years and by the year 2022, London will have a franchise, according to Mark Waller, the NFL’s new head of its international division, who envisions a team based there by 2022.
“When we started [with the series in 2007], I reckoned it’d take 15 years to do it,” Waller told the NFL Network’s Albert Breer. “That was what I expected, and we’re still on course. We’re at the midpoint now.”
The league still has to figure out the logistics involved such as start times and and the effects of the travel on the visiting and home teams. The biggest question is which team will leave their current home and jump to London or will the league have an expansion team that will call London home.
The St. Louis Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jacksonville Jaguars have been rumored in the past because their owners are also owners of Barclays Premier League, England’s top soccer league, although Fulham which is owned by Shad Khan was recently relegated to the minors.
Why an NFL team would be in London while Los Angeles remains without a franchise is a mystery to me, but this is a plot line that will continue each year the NFL sends two teams to London to grow the sport overseas.
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