I'm having a hard time trying to figure out how 33 or 34 teams would be added in expansion if it ever happens.

One way that I saw for 33 teams would be 3 conferences of 11... which is... weird.

Assuming that 33 or 34 teams is inevitable... how would you include the 2 new teams? What would scheduling look like?

I don't think you could have a odd number.

I see them adding 4 teams and reorganizing to three 6-team divisions in each conference.

If I have to envision less than four, I do not see anything other than two... and I see one going to each conference and there just being a single division in each conference that has 5 teams.... but, organization isn't the biggest problem, scheduling is.

If you hold to the idea that you must play every team in your division twice, that really messes things up for the two divisions with only 5.

If you went to six 6-team divisions, you would play each team twice, then the team that finished the same as you in four other divisions once, leaving one division per year that you do not play which helps shuffle the schedule each season.

In reality, I see the NFL as a saturated market.

Yes, you have St. Louis and Oakland which just lost teams and would like to have them back, but those numbers don't work well - more is needed and there just aren't enough metropolitan areas left to support it within the U.S. The only way it happens is if they go into Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottowa.... maybe Mexico City. They would need to be large TV markets, however.

Going outside the U.S. would be huge, though... you can bet that a legitimate NFL team in Mexico City would have SKY HIGH ratings all over Central America every week. Potentially the same for Canadian TV -- that's quite an opportunity to dramatically increase the shared revenue pool and boost the heck out of the salary cap.

I need look no further than nascar to determine that expansion can be a double edged sword. Saturation, and over pricing - tickets, drivers, teams, etc, has literally killed the sport.

Bristol TN. Used to be one of the toughest places to get tickets for. Seats 162,000, and a decade ago or so, the waiting list for tickets was years.

They just ran there this weekend. Reports are somewhere around 35-40,000 people in the stands.

Nascar tracks are tearing out seats as fast as they used to put them in. Tracks are using tarps to cover empty seats so as to not look as bad as it is.

TV used to pan the crowds, showing how many people were there. Now? They zoom in on the track in an effort to hide how many people AREN'T there.



Overall, there comes a point in time where expansion and over saturation, combined with costs, just starts to fizzle attendance and viewership.

It happened in nascar, and it very likely could happen to all sports at some time.

It's why the NFL is exploring London. They would want a European footprint as well.

The NFL could easily send a few teams to Canada and 1 to Mexico tomorrow that they would boom. They need a 4th option, and Europe is the hoped option.


I don't know how saturated we are in this country as far as fans, but in so far as TV markets, it probably would be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

A few cities that probably could support a team might include:

Oklahoma City
Salt Lake City
Memphis
Birmingham

But those would dilute TV markets in Dallas, Denver, Nashville, and Atlanta or New Orleans.

Today it's not as much about what cities would support a NFL team as what locations would bring in more overall NFL viewers.

Out of country is the answer. The NFL isn't playing games in London on a lark. There is a strategy in place as to why.

For the post part I think you completely nailed it. Just for reference though, the largest metro areas that do not have an NFL team are (I removed San Diego from the list considering they just lost a team):

#22 Louisville, KY (surprised by this)
#23 Orlando, FL
#24 San Antonio, TX
#25 Portland, OR
#27 Sacramento CA

Not sure I see more than 1 or 2 possible on this list, so Mexico or Canada (if the NFL even can go to Canada, not sure if they have an agreement with CFL). Maybe an outlier like Salt Lake or the Research Triangle in NC?

If I’m adding 2 teams, I say St Louis, and Mexico City. I would love to see the Browns play in Ciudad de Mexico. Apparently the CFL does not want an NFL team in Canada.

NFL in Europe would work, teams would have to go to away games around bye weeks, or Thursday night games. You would have to get creative with scheduling, but I think there may still be competitive advantages in doing that.

Give Anchorage a team.

I don't want NFL to expand in Europe.

Those games are super early in the morning and I'm not getting up for that.

It's only going to suck for American audiences and TV ratings. Not everybody is a morning person. And holy hell if you are on the west coast.

If they want to start a European League that would be great.
I feel the only reason there is a London Game at all is because they are trying to figure out if there is a European market for this at all before wasting a bunch of money trying to build one.

Another plus would be a European league would be a good source of players for the NFL, much like NBA does.

Don't you remember 1999 the Browns expansion, are team #31 and there has to be a team with a bye week every week of the regular season?

That's the reason why I said 1 maybe 2 teams...

Strategy seems to be London, and Mexico at this point. Maybe 1 in Canada... and i heard that San Antonio was a possible spot for the Raiders if they didn't get Vegas...

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My issue with expansion is that there aren't enough good players now. Adding teams dilutes out the talent pool and the quality of the games suffers.

I personally am not a big fan of the 4 team divisions and overall scheduling. We end up with a situation where we play the same three teams for six games a year, and the other 28 teams for 10 games a year.

Detroit is a natural rival of Cleveland (look at a map) and that is the case in MLB and NBA... at least to the extent that NBA has divisional rivalries with its ridiculous playoff format. However, in the NFL, we play the Lions once every four years while we play the Ravens twice every year, or eight times as often. (Why are the Ravens in the AFC North again?)

That said, I can also recognize the genius of the current system. I think a lot of casual fans can really get more into it. It's just not that hard to remember Steelers/Ravens/Bengals as rivalry games, it's only three other teams, and those make up such a big part of the schedule. Now ask a casual fan the other teams in the American League Central or Eastern Conference Central and I'd bet it's less likely they'd know all of them.

I don't think the NFL is really in a position to expand. We've seen the last few years that there are tons of empty seats in many stadiums every week, regardless of what the official attendance numbers are.

Public money is getting harder to come by-- it's still there in many cases, but more and more people are catching onto the "socialize the costs, privatize the gains" strategy that allows a billionaire to double his investment in five years despite doing everything wrong.

I think a lot of professional sports leagues are going to struggle with attendance going forward. There's so much to compete with and you can see it in MLB ratings. Archbold mentioned NASCAR attendance above, another good example and the first I've read of this as I don't follow NASCAR. It's probably a sign of things to come for many sports leagues though.

Good point. I think this is especially true at QB as there already aren't enough good ones to go around.

No need for expansion IMO ... and if you bring teams in from, say, Europe ... that screws everything up IMO

If the NFL expands, and I DO NOT want them to do so, I could see London and Toronto as real possibilities. After that ..... maybe Mexico, if they could get an appropriate stadium built, and then one or 2 US teams. (depending on Mexico's ability to get a stadium deal done and build)

US market possibilities could include Portland, St. Louis, Salt Lake City,(though a smaller city, it has shown strong support for the Jazz) or San Antonio. (though I don't think that the 2 Texas team owners would want a 3rd team in their neighborhood)

I don't want to see the NFL watered down any more, though ..... so I hope they stay where they are.

j/c

My thought process is that if the NFL has plans to expand, it should happen in North America. I'm fully aware that they have been exploring expanding in Europe. But I think that will not net the results they hope for.

By expanding in North America you would be working with the current time zones that exist on the schedule. Once you expand in Europe you'll be messing with the schedule in terms of early morning games and upset many of your current fans who helped the league get to the point where they are today.

Alienating your current fans to add fans elsewhere leaves you at a zero sum.

j/c:

Expansion will be a negative for us hard-core fans. Of course, the NFL doesn't care about us because we're already hooked. This is a Captain Obvious statement, but the league is only interested in expanding their market and making even more money. Quality of the product and giving the current fan base be damned.

Yep, it's gone from a sport to being a part of the entertainment business.

"It's a marketing world" Jimmy Haslam

How do you justify punishing an entire division by making them travel to London every year? How can you expect a team to compete traveling to the US eight times per year??

London is a terrible idea.

Here's my idea if the NFL expands to 34 teams:

- Get rid of divisions, just keep AFC (17 teams) and NFC (17 teams)
- Expand the season to 18 games (go back to 2 preseason games and one scrimmage)
- Each team plays all 16 other teams in their conference, along with 2 random teams from the other conference (rotating basis, home/away alternation, etc)
- Top 8 teams in overall record from each conference make the playoffs (obviously head to head is the tie breaker)

Interesting ...