WHAT IS NFL NEWS?
Americans ask baseball on NFL News as their “national pastime,” but actually, football dominates the sports landscape within the country that consumes quite the other.
The day of the Super Bowl, the most-watched television event within us is virtually a legal holiday. NFL NEWS Sundays became a ritual, while even the foremost casual fans are engaged in fantasy football leagues once reserved for diehards.
The NFL NEWS has stitched itself securely within the fabric of yank culture, entrenched not only because of the top sports league but the foremost popular sort of television also.
However, the league’s immense popularity brings a replacement set of issues that the owners must address: Has we finally been saturated with NFL NEWS football?
NFL News How Much Room Is Left to Grow For?
The best thanks to summarizing the NFL NEWS’s popularity is with Super Bowl ratings; it’s the event the foremost casual and even non-sports fans find ways to tune for.
In February, 108.41 million people watched the Baltimore Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers—roughly a 3rd of the country. Keep in mind, this number includes everyone who was working emergency services during the sport, infants, grandmothers, pizza guys, etc.
When you add all of that up, only a few people that had an opportunity to observe the Super Bowl chose to try something else with their Sunday evening.
However, as big as this number was, there’s an alarming aspect to it—the ratings were actually down from a year ago, as 111.3 million tuned in to ascertain the New England Patriots fall to the NY Giants.
Could the very fact that one among the teams in 2012 was from the NY market have helped ratings? Certainly—but it’s not as if the 49ers are a localized team with no national recognition. The ratings aren’t rising at the speed they want to.
This graph, with numbers provided by zap2it.com, shows that while the Super Bowl has seen a steady increase in viewership, it appears as if there is a cap to how popular the NFL NEWS can truly get during a country already infected with the NFL NEWS sickness.
Why NFL News, then, can’t the owners just be content with their outrageous revenues and still nourish the well-oiled machine that has taken the country by storm?
Keep in mind: Roger Goodell and therefore the owners who run the country’s most powerful league are, by nature, ambitious. After all, one doesn’t become a multi-billionaire who calls the shots for an NFL NEWS franchise by “settling” to form ends meet. Goodell, who rose through the ranks from being a Jets intern to the league commissioner, doesn’t have it in him to take a seat on the sidelines and watch the cash printer that’s the NFL NEWS do its own work.
Sure, the NFL NEWS might be content with just being a lucrative $9 billion industry—but in an increasingly global world, the NFL NEWS must still grow the sport outside its borders if it wants to sustain growth and be the worldwide sport it aspires to become.
There are a tangible reason and internal desire to grow the sport internationally. Like a bottle of soda crammed with pop rockets, the NFL NEWS is itching to explore outside of the American realm.
The Overseas Escapade of NFL News
Of the four major American sports leagues, the NFL NEWS is that the only league to be exclusively operated in America. The NBA, NHL, and MLB all have teams that operate in Toronto, Canada (the NHL has several other teams throughout Canada as well), which is simply a brief drive from the American border.
While the latest NEWS has taken longer to breach the American border, it’s higher aspirations of spreading its empire to the old world.
In 1995, the NFL NEWS started a developmental offseason league called NFL NEWS Europe, which essentially served as an offshore Petri dish for the NFL NEWS to experiment. In addition to the apparent brand extension into a worldwide market, the German-based league was a chance for players to develop and gain recognition. It also served as a testing site for brand spanking new rule changes before they were implemented into the NFL NEWS.
In fact, the NFL NEWS has had such a lot of success in London that it’s added a second regular-season game to the London circuit for the 2013 season—which is never Goodell’s endgame.
According to Bart Hubbuch of the NY Post, earlier this month Goodell publicly stated that not only is he exploring adding even more games to the London slate, but ultimately, he and choose owners are eyeing a London-based franchise (h/t Pro Football Talk).
Most of those ideas are still in their infancy, and a London expansion isn’t happening anytime within the immediate future, but there’s one question that must be answered before anything else can happen:
Why NFL News in London?
After all, if the NFL NEWS believes that its home market has been saturated, why not make a better transition to Canada, or maybe Mexico? If NFL NEWS Europe was a German-based league, why start during a brand-new country?
After all, it might be very unlike Goodell to form the “safe” move to Toronto only for the sake of moving to a replacement country. If the NFL NEWS goes to enter a replacement country, it’s getting to need to ignite a completely new populace.
Second, there are many logistical advantages to playing in London. Most importantly, they speak English—a virtual necessity so as to lure free agents to the country. The time period is slightly shorter, and therefore the NFL NEWS has experience moving teams to and from the country with their annual trips.
Besides, the NFL NEWS already failed in Germany—it’s time to offer somebody else an opportunity.
Will a London Franchise Succeed with NFL News ?
So, we have a target destination and a commissioner who appears willing to tug the trigger.
The only remaining question is, can the NFL NEWS thrive with two Big Bens?
On the surface, it appears as if an NFL NEWS franchise within the UK would be a blockbuster. In London, tickets for the Jaguars vs. 49ers matchup were devoured moments after they become available. Had that game been in Jacksonville, the Jaguars would have had a tough time selling all of their tarped-over seats for a seemingly lopsided matchup.
It is clear that there’s a marketplace for the NFL NEWS in London, but what proportion of it’s artificial?
If you’re an NFL NEWS fan living within the UK, there’s little question that you simply are getting to want to travel and see the sole NFL NEWS exposition that year, no matter who is playing.
But if the games become a biweekly occurrence, is that the English Bengals fan getting to flock to London every Sunday to observe the London Jaguars?
Just take a glance at the gang shots of the London games—the overwhelming majority of them are wearing jerseys of other teams. The London Games are the maximum amount of an EU football convention as they’re an actual NFL NEWS game.
There is little doubt that the sport is growing overseas, but it’s going to not be to the extent shown by ticket sales. English columnist Tom Hunt called the game “as popular as darts.” Darts are often fun, but they’re not worth a multi-billion-dollar investment.
While the NFL NEWS has taken longer to breach the American border, it’s higher aspirations of spreading its empire to the old world.
In addition to the apparent brand extension into a worldwide market, the German-based league was a chance for players to develop and gain recognition. It also served as a testing site for brand spanking new rule changes before they were implemented into the NFL NEWS.
Organizational instability got the simplest of NFL NEWS Europe just over a decade after opening its doors fact, the NFL NEWS has had such a lot success in London that it’s added a second regular-season game to the London circuit for the 2013 season—which is never Goodell’s endgame.
According to Bart Hubbuch of the NY Post, earlier this month Goodell publicly stated that not only is he exploring adding even more games to the London slate, but ultimately, he and choose owners are eyeing a London-based franchise (h/t Pro Football Talk).
Most of those ideas are still in their infancy, and a London expansion isn’t happening anytime within the immediate future, but there’s one question that must be answered before anything else can happen:
