NFL Update ( and book review )

Those bored with my NFL ramblings, please scroll down a bit where there’s a book review. OK, it’s NFL related but it could appeal to a wider audience.

Oh yes, it’s that time of year again and the new season is upon us. I’m firmly on the Jimmy Garoppolo band wagon and I’m convinced that we’ll get to 8-8 this year. I’m not asking for the play offs, that can wait until next year 🙂

There’s been surprisingly little London Team chat during the off season. I think that this is partly due to the NFL having plenty of other off-field issues to keep it occupied and partly because the Football World Cup has been on. However there have been a few developments:

Shahid Khan has bid £600M for Wembley Stadium which has lead to a lot of speculation that an NFL team could be based there. Quite what the Spurs chairman Daniel Levy makes of this I don’t know seeing as his new White Hart Lane stadium is meant to be hosting some London NFL games¹. Oh, and Shahid Khan wants the Super Bowl played there as well. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has also got on the Super Bowl band wagon.

¹But not just yet

There was a follow up article about the proposed sale in the Guardian but, to me at least, it doesn’t really explain the thinking behind the acquisition. But then I’m not a billionaire so I may be missing the point.

Not content with London and Mexico City, a game in Australia has now been mooted. I thought that the time zones would be completely out of the question but apparently the time difference is similar to that of China which is due a game in 2019 ( maybe ).

One thing is for sure is that discussions about a team outside the US will not go away. As I said last time it’s far too useful a stick with which to beat recalcitrant teams and cities into building shiny new stadia.

Anyway onto the book review …

Paper Lion – Confessions of a Last String Quarterback

George Plimpton was an American writer maybe best known for his sports journalism but whose career seemingly covered almost every aspect of the performing arts. He wrote several books describing his investigations of how big a gap there is between the average good amateur sportsman and a top professional athlete. “Paper Lion” is his story of spending a pre-season with the 1963 Detroit Lions who were at that time part of the NFL’s Western Conference ( before the 1970 merger with the AFL ). I won’t discuss his performances in the pre-season games so as not to spoil the ending, suffice to say that he didn’t get picked up for that regular season, or indeed any other 🙂

Initially he had some trouble finding a team that would take him on, especially as Plimpton insisted on playing quarterback. He would liked to have joined a New York team and he nearly joined the Baltimore Colts but eventually ended up at the Detroit Lions and was issued with jersey number 0. Plimpton tried some of the other positions, both offense and defense, to get an idea of the skills involved but with little success. Of course there are very few players of that time still active in football in any capacity. The only one that I recognised was Dick Le Beau, then a defensive back and now coach at the Tennessee Titans.

A small part of one chapter briefly discusses racial problems within the team. The view that I get was that, during the season at least, the team absolutely felt that it was performance that counted and not the colour of your skin. However … “In the off-season, the social communication between black and white, however close the rapport seemed in training camp, was almost nonexistent.”

Some things never change, such as practice squads being trimmed as the season approaches. There’s an interesting chapter describing “the night of the squeaky shoes” as players are told that they won’t make the team that year and to hand back their playbook. The differing reactions of the players I suspect are exactly the same as have happened over the past few weeks.

Other aspects however have undergone dramatic changes. The annual college draft is now a 3 day extravaganza with parrots announcing draft picks ( or not ) and wall to wall TV coverage of the 6 rounds. Back in 1963 it was 20 rounds, starting at 8 a.m. and going straight through until the last person was picked, usually about 30 hours later.

As an NFL fan I found the book interesting on a number of levels. It’s fascinating as a historical record of football at that time and to realise that in some respects it’s not that different now. There may be more sports science involved but the personal struggles to make the team and the elation or disappointment at the end of training camp are just the same. What has changed of course is the realisation of the damage that can be done to the body, usually damage that is not evident until much later in life. A star member of the 1963 Detroit team was Dick “Night Train” Lane who was a ferocious tackler and whose robust approach to the game caused a rewriting of some of the tackling rules but who suffered from CTE later in life.

I’d be interested if a non-NFL fan found it as interesting. Plimpton’s writing is first class and his observations on human nature are very sharp so I think that it would appeal.

The NFL in London

Next week sees the much awaited start of the 2017 NFL season. The relatively meaningless pre-season games are behind us and, with everybody on an 0-0 record, this is the peak confidence and enthusiasm point for many teams and fans. ( Except maybe the Jets who seem to have an agenda of their own this season. ) Even me as a 49ers fan is daring to hope that we may get closer to a .500 season this year – I said that it was peak optimism.

Soon the hype-fest that is the NFL International Series games in London will follow and discussion will undoubtedly turn to if, or indeed when, we can expect to see an NFL team based in the capital city. I’ve always been sceptical that this would ever happen, to me there are far too many logistical problems for it ever to be practical. However there seems to be a groundswell of positive opinion, even from the US, so I thought that I would try and dig a bit deeper into the details to see whether there are any obvious conclusions to be drawn.

I’ve not considered any locations in the UK except London. This is not to disparage any of our other fine cities but London is the logical choice just for the sheer number of people that live there and its travel connections to the US and other parts of Europe. Virtually every US based article that I’ve read automatically links a UK based team with London.

Basic information & statistics

Before starting on any deeper analysis it’s worth just listing some of the restrictions under which any London team would need to operate. ( For a quick recap of the NFL conference / division structure and teams see here )

US Time zones

The contiguous Unites States has four time zones. Each of these zones also has daylight savings time ( DST ), like London. However the date when DST is applied is not necessarily the same between the US and the UK so for one week during the season the time difference could be 1 hour less. The time zones, number of hours behind London time and the teams in each zone are as follows:

Eastern Time Zone	Central Time Zone	Mountain Time Zone	Pacific Time Zone
EST = -5 hours	CST = -6 hours	MST = -7 hours	PST = -8 hours
Atlanta Baltimore Buffalo Carolina Cincinnati Cleveland Detroit Indianapolis Jacksonville Miami New England New York Giants New York Jets Philadelphia Pittsburgh Tampa Bay Washington	Chicago Dallas Green Bay Houston Kansas City Minnesota New Orleans Tennessee	Arizona Denver	LA Rams LA Chargers Oakland* San Francisco Seattle

* = moving to Las Vegas, also in PST

Fixture schedule

The fixture schedule is moderately complicated. There’s a 16 game regular season, one game per week with one bye week ( i.e. week off ) split as follows:

• Each team plays six games against the other three teams in its division, facing off twice per season — once at home and once on the road. ( 6 games )
• Each team plays one game against each of the four teams from a division within its conference — two games at home and two on the road. ( three year rotation for each conference ) ( 4 games )
• Each team plays one game against each of the four teams from a division in the other conference once per season — two games at home and two on the road. ( four year rotation for each conference ) ( 4 games )
• Each team plays its remaining two games against teams from the two remaining divisions in its own conference — one game at home and the other on the road. ( depending on previous results ) ( 2 games )

Game Start Times

Game start times each week are pretty standard throughout the season. In summary they are:

• Thursday night, kicking off at 20:25 PM EST ( 01:25 London )
• Sunday, kicking off at 13:00 EST ( 18:00 London )
• Sunday, kicking off at 16:05 PM EST ( 21:05 London )
• Sunday, kicking off at 20:30 PM EST ( 01:30 London )
• Monday night, kicking off at 20:30 PM EST ( 01:30 London )

However, note the possibility of flexible scheduling at the end of the season and also some post season games are on Saturday, 16:30 EST and 20:30 EST kick offs

Most London games so far have fitted into the Sunday 13.00 EST slot but some have kicked off at 14:30 London time ( 09:30 EST, 06:30 PST ) which is maybe inconvenient for the US but good for broadcasting into Asia.

Effect on a London team

The current maximum time difference in the NFL is 3 hours. The time difference for a London based team would be 5 to 8 hours. For competitive sporting events it’s generally recommended to have one day recovery per time zone crossed which could make the 8 hour difference troublesome, especially if the road team has a game the following week. Travelling west to play road games is generally thought to be easier which could give a London team extra advantage.

Any London home games would be limited to Sunday early afternoon ( 13:00 EST ) or maybe late afternoon ( 16:05 EST ). The US Thursday, Sunday or Monday night game slots would be out of the question for London home games.

Collective Bargaining Agreement

The Collective Bargaining Agreement ( or CBA ) is essentially the contract between the players in the NFL and the team owners. The current CBA runs from 2011 until the end of the 2020 season. Negotiating the CBA has, in the past, been a tempestuous affair leading to lockouts and strikes.

Setting up a team in London is not covered by the current CBA and there doesn’t seem to be any enthusiasm for re-negotiating until the current deal expires, i.e. after 2020. There are inevitably potential pitfalls, especially with Brexit complicating matters. As far as I can see it’s fundamentally going to come down to a question of economics and as long as the players are happy that they’re not going to lose out financially then there’s no reason that a future CBA can’t include a London team. However the next set of negotiations are heating up already and are promising a minor Armageddon so it’s possible that a London team won’t make the agenda at all.

There are already tax discrepancies within the different states in the US. For example Raiders players will get a pay rise just for moving to Las Vegas due to Nevada’s tax rules. The UK government also seem to be sympathetic to potential taxation issues.

Which Team?

There are two ways of creating a London based team, both of which have happened before for new teams in the US:

Expansion

Expansion means creating a brand new team from scratch. Since I started watching the NFL on Channel 4 in 1982 there have been four new teams created – Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars, Baltimore Ravens* & Houston Texans. However the current divisional structure is so well balanced with 32 teams in two conferences with four divisions of four teams each that I can’t see expansion being a feasible route.

( * Slightly complicated history with the Cleveland Browns )

John O’Mara, the Giants owner agrees ( in 2015 ) –  “We haven’t had any discussion about expansion at this point,” New York Giants owner John Mara told me. “Whether that could happen in the future? Who knows.”

However Jim Bailey, a former NFL team executive, disagrees ( in 2013 ) – “My guess is the league would like to manage the process,” said Bailey, “which would indicate to me they might prefer expansion to relocation.”

Jim Bailey does make a very valid point. The final decision on a team relocation is taken via a vote of all the 32 teams. A majority of 75% is needed for the vote to pass which means that 9 teams voting “no” will veto the move. So, for example, if one or more of these happens:

• The other three teams in the London’s team division decide that they don’t want a road game in London every year
• Some of the seven teams in in the Pacific or Mountain time zones don’t fancy a road game in London every few years
• Some of the more traditional owners don’t like the idea of a team outside the US

then I suspect that there could be 9 votes against quite easily.

Relocation

Relocation of professional sports teams in the US is much more common than in the UK. NFL teams are run more on a franchise system and some teams have moved cities several times. Often the move is acrimonious, one of the more infamous being the moonlight flit of the Baltimore Colts to Indianapolis. ( This move has been described in a very entertaining documentary – The Band That Wouldn’t Die – that describes the events from the point of view of the Baltimore Colts marching band. It’s well worth watching if you’re an NFL fan. )

For a team to relocate to London then it’s highly likely that it has to be currently playing in the Eastern Time Zone to minimise the time difference for the bulk of its games. However well established teams like the Patriots, the New York teams, Pittsburgh, Washington etc. are never going to relocate to London so the possible list is not large. As regards likely candidates then NFL EVP Eric Grubman has said:

The precursor [ to a London team ] is an aging stadium that is not being maintained, a lack of competitiveness in that stadium as an economic engine, and nobody doing anything about it. If those things are present, the clouds are gathering, and usually people aren’t silent about it. So if you look around the league, I don’t think all those things are in place in any other market. Could they be in five or 10 years? Yes. But not now, and I see no reason to suggest that’s going to happen.

The three candidates that I’ve seen most written about are:

• Jacksonville Jaguars – owned by Shad Khan who also owns Fulham FC
• Tampa Bay Buccaneers – owned by the Glazer family who also own Manchester United
• Buffalo Bills – but the current owners have stated that they’re committed to staying in Buffalo for now at least.

Jacksonville in particular are committed to playing several games in London as part of the International Series. One problem with both the Jaguars and the Buccaneers is that their recent records have not exactly been stellar. Neither team has reached the playoffs since 2007 although I suppose that they do have a few years to improve before a potential move to London.

Playing Venue

International Series games between 2007 and 2015 were played exclusively at Wembley Stadium. Since then games have been split between Wembley and Twickenham Stadium. However from 2018 Tottenham Hotspur have agreed a 10 year deal to host at least two games per season at their new ground. From their website:

Underneath the grass field will be a synthetic grass surface that would be used for NFL games and other events. This innovative solution also allows greater flexibility in the scheduling of games, reducing the set up time required to prepare the ground for other events. Dedicated facilities for the NFL – including a home locker room and media suite – are also provided so that at no point are the facilities provided for the Club compromised by the need to cater for other uses.

It’s possible that a London team could use more than one stadium but really any of the ones used so far would be fine. For a multi-stadium deal it’s unlikely to be a repeat of when Green Bay played a few games per year at Milwaukee County Stadium between 1953 and 1994. However this was a baseball stadium and was not really suitable for football, for example both teams had to be on the same sideline. None of the London stadia will have this problem and all will be tried and tested before hosting a full time team.

Logistics

So, assuming a London team is created, what are the day to day problems that they and their opponents are likely to face?

Regular season games

As might be expected for a 16 game season there are 8 home games and 8 road games. It’s unlikely that a London team will be commuting across the Atlantic every fortnight but rather road games in the US ( and home games ) will be played in blocks of two or three back to back. This should work but I’d certainly want to play the last three games of the season at home which may not go down well with the opponents.

Post season games

Post season game fixtures, by their nature, are usually only decided a week in advance. To me this is a possible killer, for example what happens if you’re a West division team and you find out after the final game of the season that your next Wild Card game is in London the following Saturday? If a London team manages to get home field throughout the playoffs then that’s going to be a major advantage.

TV coverage

Current International Series games ( and the Super Bowl ) are shown both in pay tv ( SKY Sports ) and free to air ( BBC ). Other NFL games are only shown on SKY Sports for which a ~£50/month subscription is required. The alternative is NFL Game Pass which I think is about £100 for the regular season and maybe extra for the post season although it’s difficult to find pricing for the UK.

It’s difficult to know whether showing the London games on pay tv only would have an effect. There’s been much discussion as to whether cricket suffered from its decision to go exclusively to pay tv but the most recent deal sees some Twenty20 games returning to free to air.

My feeling is that it’s going to be difficult to attract the casual viewer without some games at least on free to air tv.

Clashes with other sports

The NFL season doesn’t really clash with any other UK based sport. The only ones that I can think of are:

• Rugby Union Autumn internationals – these are glorified friendlies really so shouldn’t pose a problem
• There’s a heavy ( association ) football program over Christmas period but again it should be possible to slot in the NFL games
• The FA Cup 3rd round is played in the 1^st week in January with televised games from Friday through to Monday on both pay and free TV. In 2017 this would have clashed with the wild card games.

Legal issues

I fully expect that contractual legal and taxation issues would have been sorted out during the CBA negotiations. However it should be noted that UK immigration rules may restrict entry to persons that have served prison sentences The full rules are here but, despite the NFL’s slightly tarnished reputation in this area, the only player that I can think in recent years of that it would effect would be Michael Vick. As far as I can see this would apply to to both London and US based players.

Climate

London has a pretty mild climate compared to some of the NFL’s US cities. However the whole place will grind to a halt with a surprisingly small about of snow and I can see the teams from the northern US being none too impressed if this happens.

Alternatives

London is not the only non-US venue that’s been considered. Interestingly there’s also a suggestion that Brazil could host the Pro Bowl but I’m not sure what they’ve done to deserve that punishment.

Mexico

There was one International Series game in Mexico in 2016, with the same scheduled for 2017. I think that it was generally a success but obviously it’s in its early stages. Mexico City is in the Central timezone although it’s over 7,200 feet above sea level, about 2,000 feet higher than Denver.

Toronto

Between 2008 and 2013 the Bills played one “home” game a year in Toronto. The series was not a success with games not selling out. With the sale of the Buffalo franchise in 2014 to the Pegula family then it seems that any potential Bills move to Toronto is now dead. However that doesn’t preclude a different team moving to Canada.

China

To me an NFL team in China seemed highly unlikely but I was slightly surprised to learn that they already have a professional Arena League. From a quick check it seems that it 50/50 Chinese and American players.

There have been previous attempts to play NFL regular season games in China but, so far at least, these have come to nothing. However Tom Brady is keen on it and there still plans for a game in 2019.

Beijing is 8 hours in front of London which makes it 13 hours in front of Eastern time and a slightly staggering 16 hours in front of Pacific time. That should make for interesting TV scheduling even if some teams don’t want to go. Interestingly although the NBA has had links to China for some time they have still only played pre-season games there.

Elsewhere in Europe

Albert Breer, from the MMQB, tweeted in 2016 that a German International Series game was also likely in the near future. That seems to have gone a bit quiet.

Alternative Analysis

All these international games, London included, should be looked on as speculative. A single game ( or a series of games ) anywhere is an easy test and simple to step back from if it’s not a success. To host an international game is a much smaller step than locating a team outside the US, which is not so easy to pull back from.

There’s a very interesting article by Nate Silver from 2014 where he tries to analyse where the greatest interest in the NFL lies and thus where teams should relocate to. In the article he lists a number of locations and the ones without teams at the time of writing are as follows ( list position in brackets):

• Los Angeles (2)
• Mexico City (7)
• Toronto (15)
• Las Vegas (22)
• Sacramento (28)
• Virgina Beach (30)
• San Antonio (31)
• London (33)

LA of course now has two teams and the cities that lost those teams are San Diego (14) and St Louis (23). Las Vegas will also gain a team from Oakland (13).

To me this analysis shows that if the NFL wants to expand beyond the US then Mexico is the obvious first step not London ( Trump’s “uuuge” southern wall notwithstanding ). In fact, going by this analysis, there’s more to be gained from getting teams back to Oakland, San Diego and St Louis than going to London.

Conclusion

Hosting and selling out four International Series games is impressive but nowhere near the level of fan commitment needed to support a ( probably mediocre ) full time team. NFL UK managing director Alistair Kirkwood has talked about needing to triple the UK fan base before a London team becomes viable. Don Banks of the MMQB is rightly sceptical that this would ever be possible. Also many UK fans, myself included, support teams other than ones that are likely to relocate to London. I certainly wouldn’t switch my allegiance but of course that may not be true of fans that start following the game because of the interest that a London team would generate.

The idea of a London team won’t go away though. For the NFL it’s far too useful a stick with which to beat other US cities who may be reluctant to build new stadia. But don’t expect anything other than positive noises to emanate from the NFL commissioner’s office as there’s absolutely no benefit in being negative at the moment. It’s much easier to say “sorry we tried but the logistics don’t work” in a few years time rather than alienate fans now.

You could reasonably argue that trying to predict something as complex as this so far in advance is probably a futile exercise especially when you throw in the ticking time bomb of the CBA negotiations. However, to me, the logistic problems of having a team in London, especially regarding the post season arrangements, outweigh any benefits. If the NFL is insistent on widening its horizons then a team in Mexico would probably be a better start.